What a Hospital Looked Like 100 Years Ago

We associate bloodletting as a treatment for disease hundreds of years ago. However, the procedure was still used in the early 20th century.

Until the 1980s, nurses wore small white caps as part of their uniform. This ended when nurses began wearing scrubs.

Anesthesia was being used more frequently and efficiently 100 years ago. In 1914, Dr. Dennis E. Jackson developed a carbon dioxide-absorbing anesthesia system that used less anesthetic than previous methods.

Hospitals in the South lacked the wealthy donors of the North, and many were for-profit institutions and were physician-owned.

Hospitals were increasing in number in the United States 100 years ago, but there was no regulation of the industry. Hospitals were free to oversee their own expenses, what to charge patients, and how to collect the bill.