Robert Walsh, second vice president; Mrs. John Boyle, third
vice president; Mrs. Harry Hunter, fourth vice president;
Miss Katheryn Griffin, secretary; Mrs. Isaac Mamaux, treasurer;
Mrs. Wm. Smith, publicity; Mrs. John Finn, Mus.
Thomas Ford, Mrs. E. A. Hufnagle, Mrs. Wm. Labge, Mrs.
John Lloyd, Mrs. James Loftis, Mrs. Joseph Murphy, Mrs.
Charles Reel, Mrs. George Walker.
ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL
St. Francis Hospital was started in a little frame house in
Thirty-seventh street, in 1865, with three Franciscan sisters
in charge. The staff was obtained by calling in doctors of the
neighborhood when physicians were needed. Through the
smallpox epidemic which swept Pittsburgh from 1866 to 1872
the institution directed attention entirely to contagious cases.
At that time Lawrenceville was the residential section of the
city, and the work being done in the tiny hospital caused
business men of the district to realize how badly more facilities
were needed. They purchased a few acres of land on
which a frame building stood, and moved the sisters into
these quarters, where they were able to care for a larger number
of patients. The institution soon began to function as a
general hospital, and equipped itself according to the ideals of
modern medical science.
Through the sixty years that St. Francis Hospital has operated,
the calls for aid have mounted constantly until it is now
caring for more than 600 patients daily in buildings that were
intended for a much smaller number. More than 10,500 persons
sought health in this hospital during the past year.
More than 3,000, admittedly too poor to pay, were given
every necessity that money bought for others, to say nothing
of those treated in the free dispensary department. The bedpatient
service was 81 per cent free, while 77 per cent of all
patients treated were cared for without charge. The register-2d
capacity of the hospital is 600 beds, but 709 patients have
been treated at one time by placing cots in the aisles of wards,
and by putting beds in the public corridors. Delays of three
weeks have been necessary before patients could be admitted
but no destitute sick or those needing emergency attention
