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William P. Schecter, MD
San Francisco, Calif

Arch Surg. 2003;138:823-824.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

THE PREDECESSOR of San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) was opened on July 18, 1857, in a 3-story brick building built in 1854 as the North Beach School on the corner of Francisco and Stockton streets. By 1870, there were approximately 3000 annual admissions, with infectious diseases (tuberculosis, variola, and pneumonia) and trauma as the leading causes of admission and death. The original facility in North Beach was hopelessly inadequate to the task, and a new City and County Hospital was opened on August 28, 1872, on Potrero Avenue, the site of the current hospital. The "new hospital," a 2-story wooden building with 6 wards per floor, each accommodating 32 beds, survived the 1906 earthquake.

Sanitary facilities were less than ideal. A typhoid epidemic followed the earthquake, overwhelming the hospital with patients. Rats overran the city, and an epidemic of the plague followed shortly. The plague spread . . . [Full Text of this Article]

DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

The Department of Surgery, University of California, San Francisco
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Arch Surg 2005;140:1143-1148.
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