Throwback Thursday: St. Mary’s Hospital Evansville, 1894

1894 brochure for St. Mary’s Hospital, Evansville, Indiana (used with permission of Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives)

For Throwback Thursday, an 1894 advertisement for St. Mary’s Hospital in Evansville, Indiana, about the features of its new building. Among the new features were electricity and steam heating. The “Brief Descriptive” reads:
“Cost of Building: $110,000
A four-story structure of pressed brick
Large, handsome grounds
Five wards, 23 Private Rooms
Hospital Capacity 130 Beds
Twenty-four Baths, with Hot and Cold Water
Electric Bath on every floor.
Twenty Lavatories.
Two Dumb Waiters on each floor.
Two Pantries on each floor.
Modern Steam Elevator.
Steam Heat throughout the Building
Direct Outside Ventilation in each room, ward, and hall.
Two General Operating Rooms with tiled floors
One Special Operating Room for the most delicate surgical work, supplied with distilled water, hot and cold, from two tanks, each fifty gallons capacity.
Lighting of the Operating Rooms is such that operations are performed equaloly well by night or day.
The Institution thoroughly equipped with all modern Electrical and Surgical Appliances.
The only Hospital in Southern Indiana with a resident house surgeon.
Trained Nurses. Nursing in charge of a graduate of Eastern school.
Well equipped Pharmacy in charge of a competent pharmacist
The very best Kitchen and Culinary arrangement.
The entire institution under Sister Loretto, who had had a hospital experience extending over twenty-five years.”