[Illustration: Gentlemen's Reception-room, Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute.]
FIRST FLOOR.
The first floor of the building is reached through a beautifully finished vestibule, by a short flight of broad, easy stairs, and once inside the visitor is struck by the beauty of design as well as by the home-like appearance of the surroundings. The wood-work is mainly of hard woods, oak and cherry predominating. In a large part of the house the floors are of oak, with a cherry border, neatly finished in oil and shellac, and covered with rich rugs and elegant carpets of the very best quality.
[Illustration: Ladies' Parlor.--Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute.]
On the first floor is the gentlemen's reception-room, which is thronged with patients from early in the morning until late in the afternoon. It is entirely distinct from the large reception-room and parlors for lady patients, and the utmost privacy is secured throughout the whole arrangement of the Institution. On this floor are the suites of offices, parlors, and private consultation-rooms, some fifteen in all; also a well furnished reading-room and circulating library, for the use of the inmates of the Institution. On all sides are beautifully frescoed walls adorned with numerous choice engravings and other pictures. All the rooms throughout the house are furnished in the best of style, and in a manner to afford the utmost comfort and cheerfulness of surroundings for the sick and afflicted who seek this remedial resort. The Turkish and other baths are elegantly fitted up on the first floor, opposite the reading-room.
THE UPPER FLOORS.
Above the first, or main floor, the building is divided into separate rooms and suites of rooms for the accommodation of patients. All are well lighted, have high ceilings, and are cheerful and well ventilated apartments. On the second floor is the large medical library and medical council-room, for the exclusive use of the Faculty, also the museum-room, which contains a large and valuable collection of anatomical and morbid specimens, many of them being obtained from cases treated in this Institution. On this floor are also suites of rooms, occupied by the Bureau of Medical Correspondence, wherein from ten to twelve physicians, each supplied with the improved graphophone, are constantly employed in attending to the vast correspondence received from invalids residing in all parts of the United States and Canada.
Every important case receives the careful consideration of a council composed of from three to five of these expert specialists, before being finally passed upon and prescribed for.
[Illustration: Library and Reading-room--Invalids'
Hotel and Surgical Institute.]
ON THE THIRD FLOOR
are the large treatment-rooms, supplied with all the apparatus and appliances for the successful management of every chronic malady incident to humanity. Electrical apparatus of the latest and most approved kinds, some of it driven and operated by steam-power, dry cupping and equalizing-treatment apparatus, "vitalization" apparatus, numerous and most ingenious rubbing and manipulating apparatus and machinery, driven by steam-power, are among the almost innumerable curative agencies that are here brought into use as aids in the cure of human ailments. Our
ELECTRICAL OUTFIT
[Illustration: President Pierce's Business Office--Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute.]
is the finest to be found in any sanitarium in the United States and, we believe, in the world. There are two forty-cell galvanic batteries with switch boards for controlling the voltage, or force, from the whole power to one-fortieth of this amount, at the will of the physician.
Safe-guards in the shape of milli-ampere meters continually indicate to the operator the force of the current. There is a dynamo for charging the storage batteries, which may be used in a patient's room when this method is found more convenient or more comfortable for the invalid.
There are two static or Franklin machines. These are used when the milder current is desired, and for spraying, sparking, etc. One of the instruments is of high voltage and furnishes us with the X rays for examining the interior parts of the body. The largest treatment room also contains a powerful ozone generator, operated by a dynamo. This supplies the room with allotropic oxygen and is invaluable in treating diseases of the lungs and air passages. This supplies the patient with vitalized air, equal to the most salubrious atmosphere in any part of the globe.
Beyond this and separated by a court, across which is an iron bridge, are the large dispensing-rooms, stocked with drugs and medical compounds of almost endless variety, and representing every branch of the _materia medica_. Here all medicines prescribed are most carefully and specially prepared for each individual case. Those to be sent away by mail or express, to patients being treated at a distance, are placed in trays, with full directions for use, and sent to another large room, where they are carefully packed, and shipped thence to their destination.
FOURTH FLOOR.
On the fourth floor are located the surgical operating-rooms and surgical ward. There are also a large number of nice, large, well furnished separate rooms on this floor, used principally for the accommodation of surgical cases. Strong, broad, iron staircases connect all the upper floors with the ground, so that in case of fire, patients need have no fear of being unable to get out safely. In fact, the building has been constructed so as to render the rapid spread of fire through it impossible, all the floors being laid on cement.
A STEAM PASSENGER ELEVATOR
is provided, so that the upper floors are quite as desirable as those lower down. The dining-rooms for gentlemen, as well as those for ladies, are located in the basement, which is reached either by stairways or by the elevator. The kitchen, store-rooms, chill-rooms, pantries, and all culinary arrangements are also in the basement.
FIRE-PROOF VAULTS.
Six large fire-proof vaults are provided in this building in which to preserve, secure from observation, as well as from fire, all records of cases examined and treated by the Faculty.
Throughout all this vast building the visitor is struck with the wonderful order and system with which every detail is carried out.
THE BATH DEPARTMENT.
[Illustration: A glimpse at the Turkish Bath Department.]
The Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, as hereinbefore indicated, is provided with Turkish, and other approved baths, with a treatment-room, fitted up with vacuum and movement-treatment apparatus of the most modern and approved style. These and much more ingeniously devised apparatus and appliances are brought into use in a great variety of chronic affections with marvelously successful results. A perfect system of physical training, especially adapted to the wants of the invalid and weak, and most skillfully conducted and applied, is not the least important among the many advantages that the chronic sufferers here find.
THE SURGICAL DEPARTMENT.
In the Surgical Department, every instrument and appliance approved by the modern operator is provided, and many and ingenious are the instruments and devices that the Faculty of this institution have invented and perfected to meet the wants of their numerous cases.
OUR REMEDIES.
In the prescribing of remedies for disease, the Staff resort to the whole broad field of _materia medica_, allowing themselves to be hampered by no school, _ism_,_pathy_, or sect. The medicines employed are all prepared by skilled chemists and pharmacists, and the greatest care is exercised to have them manufactured from the freshest and purest ingredients. Our Faculty probably employ a greater number and variety of extracts from native roots, barks and herbs in their practice than are used in any other invalids' resort in the land. All of the vegetable extracts employed in our practice are prepared in our own Laboratory.
REGULATION OF DIET.
The table is supplied with an abundance of wholesome and nutritious food, especially adapted and prepared to suit the invalid, it being varied to suit each particular case. The Faculty recognize the importance of proper food as one of the greatest factors in the treatment of chronic diseases. While properly regulating and restricting the food of the invalid when necessary, they also recognize the fact that many are benefited by a liberal diet of the most substantial food, as steaks, eggs, oysters, milk, and other very nutritious articles of diet, which are always provided in abundance for those for whom they are suited.
[Illustration: View of Lake and Boat-house.--Buffalo Park.]
From previous experience somewhere, some people get the impression that they are to be half starved at such an institution as this. If this is the case anywhere it is not so here, as any one who has ever resided at our sanitarium will attest.
TRAINED ATTENDANTS.
A sufficient number of trained and experienced nurses are employed, that those requiring attendance may have the very best of care.
GOOD ORDER.
The institution is conducted in an orderly manner, that the utmost quiet may be secured. The Faculty insist, upon the part of the invalid, while under treatment, on the observance of habits of regularity in eating, sleeping, bathing and exercise. Only by such observance of hygienic laws can they succeed in their course of remedial training, and make the treatment curative.