Operating Room

Doctors observe as battlefield wounds are treated at the War Demonstration Hospital of the Rockefeller Foundation in March 1918. The New York hospital had 25 beds, an operating pavilion and a staff of American and French surgeons who researched injuries from World War I.

The Rockefeller Foundation had two objects, “First, to help win the war; second, to make the world a better place to live in after the war,” The Times Magazine wrote March 31, 1918.

The hospital was part of Rockefeller Institute, now called Rockefeller College, founded in 1901 by oil magnate John D. Rockefeller. The Times said the hospital was “aiding the institute’s work in the discovery of serums, the perfecting of war surgery, and the study of Ìøshell shock,’ and all the mental and nervous weaknesses that have to do with the war ®Õ The hospital admits male patients over 16 years of age, giving preference, of course, to certain kinds of wounds, ulcers, compound fractures wherein demonstration is most practicable.”

This photo appeared with the magazine article in 1918.