The Best Hospital in 500 Miles

The Best Hospital in 500 Miles. Fort Union National Monument. , Between Fort Riley, Kansas and California you would have found no bigger or better medical facility than the one that once stood here. In 1864 it cost $45,000 to build. This six-ward hospital had from 10 beds to 126 beds over its life., Here a hardworking staff of two Army doctors, two stewards, a cook, two nurses, and three hospital matrons treated and nursed both soldiers and civilians. Untrained enlisted men also helped tend the sick., Their caseload was daunting: blisters, boils, burns, cuts, colds, coughs, childbirth, fevers, flu, pneumonia, ulcers, gonorrhea, syphilis, scurvy, scarlet fever, typhoid, small-pox, diarrhea, delirium, opium overdose, alcoholism, rheumatism, broken bones, and gunshot and arrow wounds. In December 1876 , a typical month , Fort Union’s medical staff treated 425 patients, of whom 166 were hospitalized. About 40 percent of the people who lay in these hospital beds were civilians , who had to pay 50¢ a day for treatment.,

…this post is located on the thoroughfare to and from New Mexico… it is the base of supplies of the district… there are at all times men in the hospital not belonging to the command at Fort Union but who have taken sick or hurt while en route to or from other points and been detained at this post for treatment… , Peter Moffatt, assistant surgeon, Fort Union, 1874