I was searching for information about Brokaw Hospital in response to a reference question to the McLean County Museum of History when I noticed an interesting article about the Hospital. I knew that the "nursing school" at Brokaw Hospital had very small classes, and this article demonstrated why the school would be so small -- just two or three students at the turn of the century.
In September 1901 there were just twelve patients in this tiny hospital. Patients were a necessary part of having a nursing school at that time, because most of the learning was "hands on."
Patient confidentiality being non-existent, the Pantagraph named some of the patients and reported on their progress. Miss Lou Billings had been in a railroad accident at Mansfield and was able to be up and around in the hospital on September 13, 1901. This is amazing given her prognosis when admitted. In another newspaper article I learned that she had been injured on August 13, 1901 when driving a horse and buggy across the railroad tracks. She was hit by the west bound Big Four passenger train. Conductor Peck reported that she was apparently unaware of the approaching train because she pulled on to McGath's Crossing just as the train was reaching that point. The horse cleared the tracks but the buggy was smashed to splinters and Miss Billing was thrown through the air. The train was stopped as quickly as possible and Miss Billing, who displayed gaping head injuries, was placed on the train and rushed to the Brokaw Hospital. The Sibley Journal reports that it was Dr. Mammen who trephined or trepanned the skull to relief the pressure on her brain, assisted by a Dr. Albright, who had been on the train and cared for Miss Billings on the train. (drawing of procedure above) She also had a laceration to her right hip. She was expected to die at the time of her admission, but six weeks later she was up and about, and expected to live after all!
Also at the hospital was Mrs. Wealthy Stone, who was 76 years old. She had been admitted to the hospital after a fall which broke her hip in March of 1901. She was a resident of the Deaconess rest home (later to become the Baby Fold). While her hip was healing rheumatism set in, and she became entirely bedridden. The article further reported that Mrs. Stone was cutting her third set of teeth! I initially thought this was a clever allusion to a new set of dentures, but they literally meant she had a new set of teeth coming through her gums. She found it painful, but she was rather spry old lady.
If these reports were not amazing enough, I was very interested to see that a Mr. Henry Williams, an Alton section hand, was also in the hospital. He had been injured on the job, but was not as badly injured as first thought. This report was interesting to me because Mr. Williams was an African American, and this report marks a point at which segregation in Bloomington Normal did not prevent African Americans from being admitted to the hospital. However, racial segregation was more common after 1901 and continued for many decades in McLean County.