HOSPITALS AND NURSE TRAINING SCHOOLS.
The changed conditions of modern life have occasioned a wholly new order of things for the care of the sick and disabled; and well equipped hospitals with training schools for nurses are now numerous, where they were almost unknown fifty years ago. This has led to the institution of hospitals for the colored people. These have been very necessary for the colored people, and also for the colored physicians and surgeons. There are now several thousand of these physicians and surgeons who have received diplomas in the regular medical schools and are practicing their profession among their own people. These, however, are not usually admitted to practice in the general hospitals of the Southern States, which is a serious hindrance to their progress in knowledge and skill, as well as a great embarrassment in the care of their patients. There has been a growing demand also for colored nurses with the training that can be acquired only in hospitals. Thus for more reasons than one, hospitals designed particularly for the colored people have become necessary.
The first of these was founded at Hampton, Va., in 1891, by Miss Alice M. Bacon, who was at that time connected with Hampton Institute, though her hospital was independent and bore the name of “Dixie.” In the same year the “MacVicar Hospital,” was established as a feature of Spelman Seminary in Atlanta, and the “Provident Hospital” was instituted in Chicago. Three years later, in 1894, the “Freedmen’s Hospital” was started in Washington and the “Lamar Hospital” in Augusta, Ga. Then, in 1895, came the “Frederick Douglass” in Philadelphia; in 1896, the “Sarah Goodrich” in New Orleans; and in 1897, the “Hospital and Training School for Nurses” in Charleston. Others have followed, one by one, in other important centres; Charlotte, Richmond, Columbia, Savannah, Jacksonville, Nashville, Knoxville, Louisville, Raleigh, Tuskegee, Durham, Atlanta and elsewhere. In all of these hospitals the training school for nurses is a conspicuous feature, and the nurses who receive this training show very great efficiency, finding employment largely among the white people, who frequently prefer them to white nurses with similar training. Some of these institutions have been built up by the sheer enterprise of individual colored physicians. A notable example of this is “St. Luke’s Hospital” at Columbia, founded and maintained in the face of many discouragements by Dr. Matilda A. Evans, who received her education at Schofield Institute, Oberlin College, and the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Hospitals of this type are held in high esteem by the communities in which they are located, and are centers of beneficence for the country around.