Pennsylvania Hospital
The Pennsylvania Hospital is the first public hospital in the United States--another of the many “firsts” associated with Benjamin Franklin. Construction of the original buildings stretched over fifty years, and they reflect the changing architectural styles of the later eighteenth century as well as developing ideas about medical treatment and education.
Dr. Thomas Bond (1712-1784) launched the campaign to create a public hospital for the growing and increasingly crowded city. When he was unable to raise the necessary funds, he turned for help to Benjamin Franklin, and their application to the legislature in January 1751 was successful. In May the governor approved a grant of £2,000—contingent on the petitioners raising an equal amount.
The organizers promptly commissioned the master builder Samuel Rhoads (1711-1784) to design the hospital. He established the three-part layout that was ultimately executed--with two ward wings flanking a central pavilion, but construction was delayed when the Penn proprietors declined to donate land. Work could begin only when a site was purchased on Pine Street, at the edge of the city, in December 1754.
The first, east wing was constructed in 1755-57 by Rhoads in collaboration with fellow builder Joseph Fox (1709-1779). It was still under construction when the first patients were admitted in 1756. The ground floor contained cells for the insane; the second and third floors were wards for men and women respectively, and the top floor was used for staff lodging and to accommodate patients who needed isolation.
The style of the east wing is fully developed “Middle Georgian,” with Flemish bond brickwork, strong dentilated cornices, stone belt courses, key stoned window lintels, and a large cupola. The west wing, not built until 1794-1797, after the state authorized more funding, is in the same style and was executed by the father-and-son builders David Evans, senior (1733-1813), and junior (ca 1775 - ?). Owing to increased demand, this wing was entirely devoted to psychiatric care.
The central block was constructed in 1794-1804. It is thought to be the work of the younger David Evans, who put aside the design that Rhoads had made in 1751 to create Philadelphia’s most ambitious example of the Federal Style, with delicately detailed marble pilasters, a doorway fanlight, slender window muntins, and an oval window in the pediment. The building housed the library, apothecary, staff living quarters, and, on the top floor, the nation's oldest surgical amphitheatre—a skylit operating room where surgery was performed only when the sun was high, between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Medical students and the general public could buy tickets to view the procedures.
Photo Credit: The Constitutional Walking Tour