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Several constants show up in the book. The religious Sisters ran and staffed the hospitals, and physicians chose and performed the treatments. Fund-raising was usually the responsibility of the Sisters. The types of patients and ailments changed with the quickly changing world of our city. A particular decade's problems could not be answered with out-dated treatment.
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The Bronx shows up in this book in two ways. Pages 77 and 78 describe the medical college at Fordham University, 1905-1921, a period of profound change in the training of doctors. Secondly, the book hints at the migration of three Catholic hospitals from Manhattan to The Bronx, St. Francis, St. Joseph, and Misericordia.
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Only one Catholic hospital remains in the five boroughs of New York City: Calvary Hospital on Eastchester Road. Mom volunteered at House of Calvary on Featherbed Lane, Highbridge. Calvary became a hospital in 1968.
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In the early 1960's, I visited my grandmother in a large ward at St. Francis Hospital, 525 East 142 Street, in Mott Haven. In 1865, Franciscan Sisters of the Poor (Frances Schervier's congregation) founded the hospital in the German neighborhood of East 5th Street, Manhattan. Wikipeda says it moved to Mott Haven in 1905 and closed in 1966.
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Adjacent to St. Francis Hospital in Mott Haven was St. Joseph Hospital for Chest Diseases (or Consumptives), administered by the same congregation of Sisters. Its address was 525 East 143rd Street. A New York Times article from 6.4.1961 describes its impeding closure after 73 years. In arguing for its continuation, a staff doctor is quoted as saying that patient care there costs $10 daily as opposed to $28 in city hospitals. I have been unable to find a previous location in Manhattan. Maybe tuberculosis initiated its establishment in the more healthy air of The Bronx.
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Professor McCauley, author of this book, mentions several times the Sisters of Misericorde, who came from Quebec in the 1880's to help single mothers in Manhattan. Their work evolved into Misericordia Hospital in Wakefield, The Bronx, about 1958. When Misericordia (renamed Our Lady of Mercy Hospital) fell into financial distress about 2008, the hospital was purchased by Montefiore Medical Center.
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Professor McCauley, author of this book, mentions several times the Sisters of Misericorde, who came from Quebec in the 1880's to help single mothers in Manhattan. Their work evolved into Misericordia Hospital in Wakefield, The Bronx, about 1958. When Misericordia (renamed Our Lady of Mercy Hospital) fell into financial distress about 2008, the hospital was purchased by Montefiore Medical Center.
