NOVEMBER, 1915 No. 11 MONTHLY BULLETIN ECS 1915 Public health is purchaseable. Within natural limitations a community can determine its own death rate. THE QUEENSBOROUGH HOSPITAL FOR CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. THE WHOOPING COUGH CLINIC. HEALTHY FOOD HANDLERS. THE TUBERCULOSIS DISPENSARY AS A CENTRE FOR EDUCATION OF THE PATIENT, HIS FAMILY AND THE COMMUNITY. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH NEW YORK, N. Y. 149 CENTRE STREET Commissioner Bureau of General Administration, Bureau of Records HAVEN EMERSON, M. D. Director, EUGENE W. SCHEFFER .Acting Sanitary Superintendent, ALONZO BLAUVELT, M. D. . Registrar, Wм. H. GUILFOY, M. D. .Director, J. S. BILLINGS, M. D. .Director, R. J. WILSON, M. D. Director, WM. H. PARK, M. D. Director, LucIUS P. BROWN Director, S. JOSEPHINE BAKER, M. D. .Director, CHARLES F. BOLDUan, M. D. OF THE Department of Health of the City of New York All communications relating to the publications of the Department of Health should be addressed to the Commissioner of Health, 149 Centre St., N. Y. Entered as second class matter May 7, 1913, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of August 24, 1912. Vol. V. NEW YORK, NOVEMBER, 1915. No. 11 THE QUEENSBOROUGH HOSPITAL FOR CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. By DR. ROBERT J. WILSON, Director, Bureau of Hospitals. In 1898, after the formation of Greater New York, all cases of highly communicable diseases, which could not be properly isolated or cared for at home, Occurring in the Borough of Queens, were taken to the Kingston Avenue Hospital in the Borough of Brooklyn. The ambulance calls were for extremely long distances, College Point 19 miles, Flushing 151⁄2 miles, Bayside 13 miles, Jamaica 101⁄2 miles, Long Island City 10 miles, Far Rockaway 24 miles, Rockaway Beach 28 miles, and plainly showed the need of a borough hospital. After four years of this difficult ambulance work, and it having been demonstrated that actual harm was done to some patients by the long rides, and since many had to be left in the Borough who were in need of hospital care, the Department of Health determined to secure a site and build a hospital somewhere in the center of the Borough of Queens. For this purpose a number of sites were investigated and, finally, the Jack farm on the Black Stump Road, between Jamaica and Bayside, was decided upon as the best available. At the same time an option was taken on the Haacke farm about a mile west of the site decided upon. Considerable opposition developed to the purchase of the Jack farm and, while this matter was still pending, the city, in 1903, finally purchased the Haacke farm, the site of the new Queensborough Hospital. Plans and specifications for a hospital and ambulance station were immediately drawn but, for some reason, no contract was let for the buildings. In order to get some use of the farm, the Disinfecting Station of the Borough of Queens was transferred from Hollis to its present site, and its presence is probably what gained for the people of Queens the splendid hospital they now have. At the time of the purchase of the Haacke farm by the City there were only a few houses of any value near it. There was a small house on the place and some one, doubtless desiring to show their appreciation of the City's acquisition of the farm, set fire to it, and it was burned to the ground. Aside from the disinfecting station no additional buildings were erected by the Department, and in the meantime the property between Jamaica and the hospital site was being rapidly developed into a residential section. About 1910 the property holders in the Borough, probably through a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Department of Health, made so strenuous a representation to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment that that body passed a resolution directing the Department of Health to give up the Haacke |