User:KristonScott/Hospital of Jefferson County Pennsylvania

The Hospitals of Jefferson County Pennsylvania

Introduction

Back in the nineteenth century, the residents of Jefferson County who needed medical care had a difficult problem. An accident involving mining, railroad work, working at a factory or working with farm machinery could cause serious injury. Nobody could ignore the value of human life and the need to end sickness, pain and suffering. The county suffered a great loss of life, because of the lack of a properly equipped local hospital. The only option people with an injury or sickness had involved going to hospitals as far away as Pittsburgh at considerable danger and expense.

People seeking medical help back then had to endure the primitive science and technology of the time. Physicians lacked the ability to treat most diseases. They had only recently discovered the germ theory of disease, started using a blood pressure measurement device and X-ray technology. Medical science did not discover the first drug treatment that actually cured diseases until 1910. Also, surgery to treat problems like tumors, tonsillitis and appendicitis did not become common until that time.

Adrian Hospital

Adrian Iselin owned the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company. His miners often suffered serious injuries, so in 1889, he donated $5000 towards the construction of the first hospital in the county. He intended to have the hospital, located in Delaney, only serve the needs of the miners working at the nearby Adrian Mines. But because of the lack of any other healthcare in the area, it soon ended up as a general hospital, serving the borough of Punxsutawney and the surrounding communities. When a painter named George C. Carter fell from a scaffold at the Roman Catholic Church in Adrian, he broke his right leg above the knee and suffered head wounds. The other workmen took him to Adrian Hospital for treatment.When young Charlie Robison road on a coal train at Adrian and fell between the cars, the wheels cut off his right foot except for the heel. Luckily, the train men took him to Adrian Hospital, where he received the best surgical and medical care available. Those two and many others very much benefited from the hospital’s presence in Adrian!

The demand for the hospital’s services soon exceeded what the location could provide, so the company decided to move it to a new location. They first purchased land for the hospital at the corner of Jenks and Park Avenues in the Jenks Hill section of Punxsutawney. Representative W. O. Smith of the Pennsylvania State Legislature managed to appropriate $100,000 to pay for building the new hospital, which saw completion in 1898.

The hospital continued to help miners. In September, 1909, George Wells, while working at the Luzerne Mines, suffered a terrible scalding when the boiler burst and suffered burns over his entire body. His fellow workers brought him to the Adrian Hospital. In December, 1909, Andrew Ilschalk suffered terrible injuries from a powder blast when blasting rock in the Cascade mines.In December, 1910, John Banock suffered a severe gash in his cheek while working at the Frances Mines, near the town of Rossiter in Indiana County. The Adrian Hospital treated their injuries.

The hospital has undergone many changes since then. In 1967, numerous improvements, including a sprinkler system, physical therapy and pathology rooms, and an outpatient clinic allowed the hospital to gain full accreditation. The building, now close to one hundred years old, soon proved inadequate to provide needed services. So, in 1977, the hospital moved to a new building on Route 36 north of town, and became the Punxsutawney Area Hospital.

Punxsutawney Hospital

Dr. John E. Grube founded the Punxsutawney Hospital in 1900. He originally had the hospital built in the Dinsmore Building on West Mahoning Street in Punxsutawney, but the Pennsylvania Board of Health ordered the hospital administrators to move the hospital to another location. They purchased a house owned by J. B. Eberhart at 10 Gilpin Street and finished equipping the hospital in 1908. The hospital administrators later added an additional building on Pine Street. The hospital merged with the Adrian Hospital in 1932.

The Punxsutawney Hospital also treated serious injuries and diseases. In July, 1909, an elderly man named Samuel Mathews fell backwards and hit his head while boarding a trolley car. He suffered from a broken neck. An ambulance took him took him to the hospital, where he later died. The knowledge about medicine was rather lacking at the time. Mrs. William Schank, in August, 1910, took some poison, having mistaken it for medicine, and fell violently ill. She received prompt medical attention and her family brought her to Punxsutawney Hospital. Unfortunately, she later died.In October, 1910, Annie Mauk died at the hospital, suffering from typhoid fever.In August, 1911, the hospital treated a seriously injured miner named Lewis Ross. While he rode a mine car out of a mine, the car pushed him against the mine walls. The injury crushed his arm and broke his right leg.

Murray Sanitarium

Dr. John H. Murray, who had worked as a physician for the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal and Iron Company, opened the Murray Sanitarium in 1911 at the corner of East Mahoning and Dinsmore Avenue in Punxsutawney. He primarily treated gastrointestinal diseases. The sanitarium closed in 1938.In September, 1912, Mr. Rees Roller, a prominent citizen of Williamsburg, PA, sought treatment at the sanitarium for nervous prostration and insomnia. He had suffered from failing health for quite some time. Unfortunately, after eating breakfast and going for a walk, he killed himself by shooting himself with a revolver.Arthur Perey Widdowsen died at the sanitarium in December, 1919. In September, 1918, he fell from a chestnut tree and broke his back, leaving him an invalid.

The Snyder Hospital

Dr. Wayne Snyder founded the Snyder Hospital in Brookville. He attended medical school at Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia and graduated in 1905. He served his one-year internship at the Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia. He worked as an assistant for Dr. John Grube at the Punxsutawney Hospital for one year and then worked for six months with Dr. Thomas Lawson in Brookville. In 1908, he set up his own practice in Brookville, where he specialized in ear, eye, nose and throat diseases. For this, he took post graduate courses at the Polyclinic Hospital in New York City and at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia.

At the start of World War I, Dr. Snyder volunteered to serve in the U. S. Army as a surgeon. In February 1918, he reported to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. The U. S. Army gave him the rank of major. He served as member of the Medical Corps with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

During the 1918 Influenza epidemic, Mrs. Wayne L. Snyder allowed the seriously ill to stay at the hospital, which also served as her residence. At the time, the hospital had fourteen beds and an operating room. She opened the hospital on October 15, 1918. A nurse from the Pennsylvania Department of Health took control over the hospital, assisted by two former local nurses and some other women.

The Brookville Hospital

Funding

Up until 1914, although the Brookville community had expressed the need for a hospital for several years, nobody had done anything towards building one. The Snyder Hospital in Brookville lacked the resources necessary to take care on the entire community. Then, on September 25, 1914, doctors Brown, Thompson, Matson, Haven, Snyder, Mohney, and Whitehill met and discussed the need for a general hospital in Brookville. They also recognized that the Pennsylvania General Assembly would not support building the hospital until the city government had actually set aside land for it.

The Brookville city government organized a public meeting at the court house on the evening of October 5, 1914, in order to consider the building of a new hospital. The citizens at the meeting elected W. N. Conrad as chairman of the meeting, and directed him to appoint a committee of five, which had the task of finding out if Brookville residents would support the expense of building a hospital and what the construction would involve. On March 5, 1915, he appointed a committee, consisting of S. S. Henderson as chairman, along with Dr. W. S. Fulton, R. G. Reitz, L. G. Brosius and D. L. Taylor.

The committee members hired Conrad and Brosius, two local attorneys, to prepare articles of incorporation and to secure a charter for a non-profit organization called Brookville Hospital. On March 12, 1915, Judge John W. Reed had Brookville Hospital incorporated as a non-profit corporation.

The subscribers, the people who provided funds for building the Brookville Hospital, met at the Y. M. C. A. on June 27, 1918. They ordered the board of trustees, the appointed board that supervised the hospital, to accept the contract for building the new hospital. The board of trustees included D. L. Taylor, Lee. B. Humphrey, A. D. Deemer, L. A. Leathers, F. L. Cooley, L. G. Brosius, J. C. Lucas, Lucas G. Reitz and W. N. Conrad. The Emmett R. Bailey Company of Oil City, acting as architects, furnished the plans and specifications for the building. The Brookville community knew the company quite well, because they had already created the design for the Methodist Episcopal Church. The company stated that various state agencies, including the Department of Charities, the Department of Labor and Industry, and the State Board of Health had already approved the plans. The design for the hospital included all rooms necessary for a hospital: dressing rooms, operating rooms and everything necessary for the doctors and nurses. The subscribers had already acquired five acres for the site, including three acres donated by Mr. J. W. Kuntz and additional acreage that they had purchased. Dr. I. R. Mohney estimated that furnishings for the hospital would cost around $25,000, but still supported building the hospital. Dr. L. R. Hayes, who lived in Conifer, spoke about the strong support of miners towards building the hospital, because of the dangerous work involved in mining and the good chance they had of getting injured.

On July 3, 1918, John H. Carr, a local building contractor, estimated that construction work for the hospital would cost around $50,000. The funding started when Mrs. Nancy Neal donated $8,600 for building the hospital. Humphrey Brick & Tile Company offered to furnish the brick and tile for use in the construction. A campaign to raise funds for the hospital persuaded the local community to pledge $46,874.60.

Construction

Starting around September 1918 and lasting through November 1918, the Brookville community suffered from the worldwide influenza epidemic. Medical personnel worked day and night to help the afflicted. One doctor reported that he had twelve patients sick with influenza and felt that some of them would certainly die. As many as forty people in the Brookville area died from the disease. This helped emphasize the importance of building a new hospital in Brookville.

Although the Brookville community and the state of Pennsylvania had approved the plans for building the hospital in 1918, the entry of the United States into the war in Europe hindered construction. But by October, 1919, work on the hospital, located on South Main Street, had progressed well. The builders used reinforced concrete for the building, along with tile and a stucco finish on the outside. Observers stated that the hospital had a beautiful and modern appearance and offered a glorious view to the south, which allowed for viewing of the surrounding hills for at least ten miles. The trustees had a water system installed and also acquired the late James Dickey’s acreage to use for building a nurses’ home. They also elected as superintendent, Miss Kearney, a recent graduate of Mount Sinai Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.

Furnishing

Many people in the Brookville area guaranteed the success of the hospital. The Brookville community launched a campaign to completely furnish and equip the hospital, starting on October 15, 1919 and continuing through October 25, 1919.One way of furnishing the rooms involved allowing individuals and families to designate the various rooms and wards in the hospital as memorials.

The Brookville Association of Physicians expressed the need for X-ray equipment for the hospital. To fund this, they had Nick Schettino, a well-known Italian caterer, host a spaghetti dinner at the Y. M. C. A. on November 25, 1919. The hospital needed this, because no one had yet furnished the money for the X-ray equipment. The spaghetti dinner did raise additional funds, along with $2000 contributed by S. S. Henderson.

Friends of the Brookville Hospital on December 6, 1919, organized an opportunity for people to donate china and linen that they were going to sell to buy equipment for the hospital. The Craig Drug Company’s store set aside a special counter for the sale of the china and linen.

Dedication

Mrs. Deemer and Mr. Humphrey appointed a committee to oversee the dedication of the hospital on December 11, 1919. They opened the Brookville Hospital to the public for inspection. Automobiles took people to and from Craig’s store to the hospital, while women acted as receptionists. This represented the last opportunity for the community to see all of the rooms in the hospital, because when patients started arriving, the public would no longer have access to all of it. Before the opening of the Brookville Hospital, the Snyder Hospital had already discharged all of the patients there. When the Brookville Hospital opened, the hospital promptly closed.

Beginning Operation

Figure 1. Brookville Hospital in the early days.

The Brookville Hospital soon proved its worth. For example, in January 1920, a train on the Pittsburg and Shamutt line struck a man name Albert Plyler. The accident crushed both of his feet and caused severe internal injuries. The train crew quickly took him to the Brookville Hospital. The medical staff placed him on an operating table and amputated his left foot. The medical staff then discovered that the accident had badly fractured his pelvis and ruptured his kidneys and bladder. The seriousness of his injuries resulted in him dying in less than a day.

Conclusion

The hospitals in Jefferson County, like most hospitals before 1920, mostly served a charitable role. Physicians donated their expertise in curing diseases and treating injuries. But over time, they gradually began treating middle class patients as well as the poor and indigent. Hospitals soon became places with advanced technology and medical services.