Article on Luzenberg's Hospital - Orleans Parish

Submitted by:  Cate Sweitzer-Toepfer     ambicat@bellsouth.net

Source: THE DAILY PICAYUNE, 
        NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA 
        25 JANUARY 1877

Updated:  June 2002

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LUZENBERG HOSPITAL

THE SITE A HEALTHY ONE

The site on Elysian Fields street, north of Claiborne, has been selected over
half a century ago as the most eligible for contagious complaints; as the most
eligible to prevent, to obstruct the spread of contagion; as, also, for the
recovery of the stricken. Isolated and in a full exposure, enclosing two whole
squares, improved with suitable buildings, and an abundance of shade trees and
shrubbery, it has the advantage of isolation, ventilation, space and shade. The
essential hygienic conditions to secure the benevolent purpose aspired at. The
hospital, with the exception of a few late charter years, has always been the
 exclusive one for SMALL POX cases, for city indigent cases, and were restored
to it anew, by the express statute in 1872, which became effective in 1875. The
statute restored them on the sole basis of the salubrity of the site and
advantages it embraced. The complaint has prevailed in the city, more or less
since; and at present is epidemic in some portions of it; yet, strange, all but
marveilous [sic], since the restoration not a case has taken place in that
 portion of the city in front of the Hospital - from the Hospital to the Levee.  Not one case has occurred in a zone of three squares on either side of the
Hospital, and extending from the Hospital to Claiborne street, thence to the
Levee.

Here, then, is position, material, irrefragable evidence that contagious
complaints consigned to the LUZENBERG HOSPITAL cannot be extended or propagated,
cannot surpass the precincts. This fact vindicated the sagacity of the founder,
and the wisdom of the statutes, and realizes in all pleatitude, one-half the
purpose aspired at, namely: To prevent, to obstruct the spread of contagion.

I hope soon to furnish equally irrefragable evidence that for the other half -
the recover of the stricken - the Hospital will compare favorably, no only with
small pox hospitals, but with any or all hospitals the world over, and will thus
strip this complaint of the horrors now attached to it.

J. J. HAYES, M. D.,
Proprietor, Surgeon and Physician of the Institution.