What Is A Hospital?

During the Revolutionary War, a hospital could be a barn, a large house, a church, part of a fort, or a swiftly constructed hut. The Continental Army was under constant pressure to find suitable shelter for the sick and wounded wherever the army travelled. Most often, the army took possession of large public or civilian buildings, such as the spacious homes of sympathetic patriots or buildings abandoned by fleeing Loyalists.

When the Continental Congress established their Medical Department in July 1775, surgeons, surgeons’ mates, and apothecaries held salaried positions with medical authority to diagnose, prescribe, or operate. Nurses were restricted to cleaning duties: changing linens, emptying chamber pots, washing and feeding patients. Matrons were supposed to “superintend the nurses” and were permitted to “administer medicine and diet prescribed for the sick” only “in the absence of the Mates.” Click here to learn more.