RAILWAY HOSPITAL - The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

A RAILWAY HOSPITAL (1856-59) opened when Cleveland railroads cooperatively rented an abandoned water-cure (see HYDROTHERAPY) establishment on Lake St. and converted it into a hospital for company employees injured in accidents. Some private patients were admitted, usually gynecological cases. Dr. Seth R. Beckwith, a well-known Cleveland homeopathic physician and professor of surgery at Western Homeopathic College, was permitted to treat his private patients at the "railway" hospital. The hospital was closed after 3 years for an undisclosed reason. The Railway Hospital was one of a series of temporary hospitals in Cleveland prior to the Civil War, an early example of local FACTORY HOSPITALS.

George A. W. Crile, Sr., Papers, WRHS.

See also HOSPITALS & HEALTH PLANNING, INDUSTRY.

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