RURAL AMERICA 



for proper surgical or medical treatment. Since these facili- 

 ties were lacking he was forced to see men and women and 

 children die unnecessarily, and he cared tremendously. The 

 doctor in speaking of the county hospital said : " It will be 

 conducted on a strictly ethical basis and made the community 

 health center, from which health information will be dis- 

 seminated by both precept and example. Its equipment will 

 be complete with every facility for up-to-date work; it will 

 have a pathological and bacteriological laboratory, which 

 should be auxiliary to the laboratory of the State Board of 

 Health; it will confer great benefits on both patients and 

 physicians through an X-ray laboratory; it will provide 

 ambulance service, and it will have a training-school for 

 nurses." l 



Two additional advantages of a county hospital in a rural 

 county might be mentioned. It will greatly raise the standards 

 of the medical profession of the county, and, as a health 

 clearing-house of the entire citizenship of the county, it will 

 not only effect a saving of life in many cases where life would 

 otherwise be sacrificed, but it will render equally great service 

 in the field of prevention and sanitation. 



In many rural communities of a number of states there are 

 found hospitals that are operated either privately or under the 

 direction of churches or other organizations or associations. 

 One of the most notable of these is nearing completion in 

 Van Wert County, Ohio, and bears the name The Van Wert 

 County Hospital. The funds for this hospital were provided 

 by a public-spirited man of large means, George H. Marsh, 

 who is investing about $75,000 in the hospital grounds, build- 

 ing, equipment and nurses' home. The institution will, when 

 finished, be as well adapted for the purposes for which it is 

 intended as possibly any other rural hospital in the country. 

 Another benefactor left an endowment of $25,000 for this 

 hospital, which, since the experience of the two Iowa county 

 hospitals shows that it is possible to operate such an institu- 



1 See The World's Work, September, 1915, p. 605. 



87 



