Louis, afterwards an officer in the company of the Indies, who left a small fortune as a foundation. It was destroyed by fire in 1779 and the new Charity Hospital, now the City Hospital, was endowed in 1780. This is now one of the most important hospitals in America and receives over 8,000 patients annually.
The oldest hospital in New York City is the New York Hospital, founded in 1770 by private subscriptions. It was allowed £800 for a period of twenty years by the Municipal Assembly. The state legislature was more generous, allowing it £4,000 annually in 1795 and increasing it in 1796 to £5,000. Bellevue originated in the infirmary attached to the New York City Alms House. It was erected on its present site in 1811. Among the most important sectarian hospitals in New York are St. Vincent's, 1849, St. Luke's, 1850, and Mt. Sinai, 1852.
Fifty-six men of Boston in 1810 addressed a circular letter concerning the establishment in that city of a hospital for the poor. Jackson, Warren, and other medical lights of the day, worked out plans, and the institution, known as the Massachusetts General Hospital, was opened in 1821.
Of existing Baltimore institutions, St. Joseph's was established by the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1864; the Hebrew Hospital in 1867. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, chartered in 1867, was opened in 1889.
The District of Columbia had four hospitals during the cholera epidemic of 1832. The Washington Infirmary received congressional aid and it was proposed to enlarge it into a hospital, but it was burned during the Civil War. The Government Hospital for the Insane was established in 1852 to care for insane cases. Providence Hospital was established in 1861, largely through the efforts of Dr. Toner. Freedman's Hospital was opened in 1862 and Columbia Hospital in 1866. During the war sixty military hospitals were located in Washington and in the vicinity.
In the last half century the spread of hospitals throughout the world received a marvelous impetus. The role of bacteriology as applied to preventive medicine, surgery and therapeutics is one that must be accorded first place in advancing modern hospital efficiency. And in this connection the part played by Virchow's teaching of cellular pathology is a factor of much importance in its influence on medical thought reflected in hospital laboratory methods.
The Franco-Prussian and our own Civil War had much to do with directing men's attention to the problem of hospital construction and military surgery. Improved technique in nursing evolved the modern training school and created a distinctly new profession. Even before Lister's time, Florence Nightingale believed that soap and water and plenty of fresh air and sunlight would lessen mortality from hospital
