102 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for, from the first inception of the hospital it was designed to have a 

 country branch hospital where the more offensive and chronic cases 

 could be provided for in a better manner and more cheaply than in a 

 building in the city. From the statistics now at hand we leara that 

 seven hundred and thirty-one persons died from cancer in New York 

 city during 1882, that is at the rate of two daily : from this number 

 it is probable that there are between two and three thousand cancer 

 patients now in the city, and, as this is the only institution in the 

 United States especially devoted to cancer, the numbers who would 

 ultimately seek aid from this city, and from other portions of the 

 country, would be very large. 



" The idea, therefore, of a country hospital would be one composed 

 entirely of pavilions containing a few patients each, so that the capaci- 

 ty of the hospital could be enlarged to almost any extent, as necessity 

 required, while each pavilion, being of comparatively little cost, could 

 be removed and destroyed whenever those terrible scourges of hospitals 

 occurred in them, such as pyaemia, erysipelas, hospital gangrene, and 

 other unknown causes of excessive mortality. 



"In regard to the comparative cost of locating and running such 

 a hospital, the showing is very greatly in its favor. Recently it was 

 proposed to erect- a wing or separate building in connection with the 

 Woman's Hospital of this city, for the treatment of cancer, and the 

 cost was to be about ^140,000. This would give accommodations 

 for not over eighty patients at the utmost, and could not be in- 

 creased in size, however great the necessity ; moreover, the objection 

 would always exist in regard to the possibility or rather probability of 

 the building becoming infected sooner or later with the poisonous 

 gex'ras of cases so loathsome as certain of those afflicted with cancer 

 must become sooner or later. In addition, the mortality there must 

 necessarily have been high, from the crowded locality, and from the 

 presence of the noisy railroad. 



" Now there is at present under consideration a tract of ground 

 in a most desirable locality, containing nearly one hundred and fifty 

 acres, with a number of valuable buildings upon it, which can be ob- 

 tained for $50,000. Upon this twenty pavilions, each containing four 

 beds, could be erected for 81,000 each, including furnishing. This 

 would give accommodation for eighty patients at a cost of but $70,000, 

 one half the cost of the proposed city building, leaving $70,000 of the 

 amount for investment. Moreover, the country hospital could be 

 extended to almost any size as occasion demanded, w^hei*eas, at the 

 beginning there need be only a few pavilions erected, the number 

 being increased as required. 



*' The cost of maintaining patients in such a place would be less 

 than in the city, whereas the advantages arising to the patients would 

 be incomparable. 



" With fifty and more gentlemen and ladies thoroughly interested 



