30. The First Winchester Hospital Opened In 1915 At 711 West Franklin St.

Winchester Herald, Feb. 3, 1915.



  It is indeed very gratifying to the people of Winchester and vicinity to receive a letter from Dr. and Mrs. Langdon announcing the opening of a new hospital in this city. It is the one institution this city badly needed. How comforting it is to know when our friends need hospital care, they need not go out of town where their friends can not see or hear from them often.
  Mrs. Elizabeth Langdon, who has always called this city her home, is a graduate from the Cincinnati Hospital Training School for Nurses, having taken a three year course. Her efficiency as a nurse has been recognized here, for she has nursed many difficult cases in and near this city. Over a year ago she conceived the idea of establishing a hospital here, as she could so well realize how much it would mean to the community.
  After her marriage with Dr. Langdon, they together formulated plans which resulted in their getting possession of the house built by Mr. Tansel at 711 West Franklin Street. The location is good. No buildings are very near the house and only one block from the interurban line on Washington Street. In a well lighted basement they have two large rooms, one in which they have installed a fine heating plant, the other a kitchen, presided over by a competent cook, who understands Dietetics which is so very necessary. The kitchen is so well placed that no odors from the cooking can reach the patients on the first and second floor.
  On the first floor is a neatly furnished reception room which contains office desk, table, library and chairs, a bed room, operating and sterilizing rooms. On the second floor there are three bedrooms, each opening into a hall. These rooms have two windows each except the front room which has three. They are well lighted and have good ventilation. The white enamel beds, small rugs and muslin curtains gives an air of purity and cleanliness. The electric room warmers and electric bed pad warmers are the latest models.
  The most important room, of course, is the operating room. It has three windows on the east and one large one on the south. The walls, ceiling and woodwork are of white enamel. the floors of all the other rooms are of hardwood but here linoleum of white and green design covers the floor. The instrument stand is also of the white enamel. The operating table is a Walker-Baldwin Self Balancing make and certainly could not be improved on. Everything is perfectly sanitary and before and after an operation the room and fixtures are thoroughly disinfected. The hydrogen lights over the operating table give such a bright white light that in an emergency case an operation could be performed at night as well as day. The thermometer registers the temperature and moisture.
  Leading from the operating room is the sterilizing room. Here they have their electric sterilizers, one for the operators instruments and the other for dressings, bandages etc. A glass case of instruments is conveniently placed for use of the nurses. These rooms are well equipped and make an ideal place for operations.
  Everything for the care and comfort of the patients have been anticipated by the management. No contagious diseases will be admitted, but all surgical and obstetrical cases are at the command of the patrons and their physicians. The Lancet Clinic, a medical journal of medicine and surgery, has to say of the hospital: "A new departure in hospital management is here inaugurated, in that patients are admitted by their own physicians only, no patients being accepted by personal application."
  The hospital is at the disposal of the medical profession in Winchester and surrounding country. Laboratory diagnostic work will be done. Dr. Langdon does no operating, he is superintendent of the hospital. He is a graduate of the Medical Department of the Cincinnati University. For a few years after his graduation he served as intern in a hospital in that city and is thoroughly competent in his work. For their opening day they had issued invitations for persons interested to inspect the hospital, but a telephone message from a local physician that he wished the use of the operating room for that day changed their plans. However the invitation still holds good and anyone may visit the hospital and inspect the facilities there. There are now three patients there, all improving nicely.
  We predict for Dr. and Mrs. Langdon unbounded success and are very glad to welcome them to our city. Should they meet with success they hope for, and they out grow their present quarters, they intend building a modern hospital with more wards in it.

[The Langdons, nor their hospital, were ever mentioned again in following newspapers. No phone numbers are found in the 1916 directory. Hetty Voris donated her "Old Ladies Home' to Winchester for a hospital, but remodeling didn't start until 1919 so there was no competition for them from there. It looks as though the local doctors didn't see the need for a hospital at that time. After all of the hype in this article, they just vanished.]