Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007 - (Page 12)

above and opposite page: Charity Hospital’s 1832 building on Tulane Avenue served New Orleans’ indigent patients for more than 100 years. (The Isle of Orleans was ceded to Spain in 1763.) The new structure had 24 beds but was lost to fire in 1809. Three patients died in the blaze and a fourth died soon after from “fatigue of removal.” After the San Carlos was destroyed, patients were housed in the upper gallery of the Cabildo Nothing being more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain (then serving as City Hall) for one month; following this they were moved than its hour, being stricken with a dangerous bodily malady, but sane to the Jourdan residence in the Faubourg Marigny for six months until of mind, I desire to settle my affairs, explaining how I intend that my last Madame Jourdan reclaimed her home; finally patients were moved to will be carried out by testamentary executor…a sale shall be made of the dilapidated De La Vergne plantation for five years while awaiting the all that remains, which, together with my small lot, I bequeath to serve building of a new hospital. in perpetuity to the founding of a hospital for the sick of the City of New In 1815, the fourth Charity Hospital was erected. The site was on Orleans, without anyone being able to change my purpose, and to seCanal Street where the Fairmont Hotel is now located, then a cure the things necessary to succor the sick. remote, swampy area of the city. In only three years the conThese words written more than 250 years ago are part of ditions were so deplorable that a group of visiting citizens the last will and testament of Jean Louis dated November reported to the governor that Charity “served no purpose 16, 1735. Jean Louis, a French seaman who built boats than to confine the wretched and compel them to die in in New Orleans, bequeathed his holdings to the founding a place contrary to their choice.” Patients were found and maintenance of Charity Hospital, a hospital for the almost abandoned. The hospital was dirty, and with a indigent sick of the colony of New Orleans. lack of blankets, sheets and laundry facilities, it was Charity Hospital opened it doors at deemed a “deep disgrace to any civilized Chartres and Bienville streets on May 10, or Christian country.” Chickens roosted in Louisiana is the only state in the hospital rooms and their offal covered 1736. It is the second oldest continuing public hospital in the United States. The the furniture. Patients slept on matthe Union with hospitals oldest is Bellevue in New York which tresses on which “were the visible marks providing medical care to of the putrid discharges of those who had opened its doors on March 31, 1736, one and one-half months before Charity. Char- those who cannot pay for it. died on them of the most pestilential disity Hospital was initially called Hospital of eases.” Saint John or L'Hopital des Pauvres de la Charité (Hospital for the Poor). The fifth Charity Hospital was built in 1832. In 1834, the Daughters of Charity Hospital outgrew its first location and was moved to a second Charity assumed control of operations. Charity enjoyed a time of skillful building in the year 1743 near a ship-turning basin at the edge of town nursing care. The Daughters of Charity opened their own hospital, Hotel now known as Basin Street. In 1779 this structure was nearly destroyed Dieu, in 1859. After more than 100 years of service in the same building, by a hurricane. Only the kitchen and storehouse were left standing and the sixth and current hospital was built in 1939. At the time it was the served as the hospital quarters holding six beds. second largest hospital in the United States with 2,680 beds. Charity was rebuilt a third time in 1785 in the same location and was —Excerpted from the Web site of the Medical Center of called the San Carlos Hospital in honor of King Charles III, King of Spain. Louisiana at New Orleans: www.mclno.org “ to succor the sick” The origins of Charity Hospital 12 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Fall 2007 HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION http://www.mclno.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

Contents Friends & Letters Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Big Charity: A History of New Orleans’ Public Hospital Historic New Orleans Collection Making Groceries: A History of New Orleans Markets New Orleans’ Faubourg Tremé: Rooted in Tradition Jazz Notes Louisiana Association of Museums Chinatown New Orleans Louisiana Foodways A Question of Secession Louisiana Architecture Louisiana State Museum The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish Terra Incognita Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

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