MEDICAL MEETING – Participating in the annual Tioga-Potter County medical meeting held at the Tyoga Country Club were, seated from left:  Dr. Ralph Matter, Blossburg; Dr. William Butler, Wellsboro; Dr. Ronald Stevens, Wellsboro; Dr. Lane Webster, president, Wellsboro; Dr. Fredrick Sanford, Williamsport, who led the discussion on cancer; Dr. Eleanor Larson, Elkland: and Dr. J. J. Moore, Mansfield.  Standing, Dr. Thomas Dimitroff, Wellsboro; Dr. H. R. Buckley, Liberty; Dr. J. G. Webster, Wellsboro; Dr. Hervey Hagedorn, Westfield; Dr. William Bachman, Wellsboro; Dr. Robert Bair, Wellsboro; Dr. Patrick Berzito, Blossburg; Dr. Robert Sanford, Mansfield; Dr. Floyd Cole, Blossburg; Dr. Arthur Ninomiya, Blossburg and Dr. Harry Williams, Elkland.

[Illustration: ELMIRA, N.Y., MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 19, 1956.] BLOSSBURG HOSPITAL EVENT – Mrs. Kathryn Kerwan (**Kerwan or Kerwin?  Spelled both ways in same caption**), dietitian at the Blossburg State Hospital for more than 20 years, was honored at a dinner last week.  In photo, from left:  seated, Mrs. Kerwin; Dr. Lloyd G. Cole, surgeon in chief, and Mrs. Cole (Hazel Jennings); standing, William Lanson and Mrs. Elizabeth Bogart.

By HELEN GEESEY
1944

From out of the 1944 infantile paralysis epidemic, which began late in June and now is waning, the Blossburg Hospital, in hard-hit Tioga County, has emerged with colors flying. Situated on a hilltop overlooking a community of 2,000 persons, the state institution originally was intended to serve miners and their families in that bituminous and semi-bituminous coal region. The first hospital building in 1890 was a cottage style frame structure housing 15 beds.  The matron of the institution took her market basket over her arm and went into town each day to make the necessary purchases of food and other supplies

Excellently Equipped

But the hospital I visited in Blossburg this week is no longer “cottage style.”  It is a fine, modern light brick structure which lays bathing in the sun on a hill high above the bustling little community, like a monument of mercy. It enjoys all the facilities of an institution in a larger center, and at the same time possesses the quiet and restful beauty of the mountains.  It has fully equipped operating rooms, deliver rooms, laboratory, X-ray and deep therapy department, administrative offices, kitchen and dietetic services. Although its capacity is 90 beds, it has taken care of a larger number of patients than that at one time and is perfectly equal to emergencies – as, for instance, the recent polio outbreak, when an isolation unit was set up virtually over night to care for 50 stricken persons sent in from three communities.

Charles J. Bowers, superintendent of the hospital since 1941, described to me those hectic first days of the epidemic when obstacles had to be hurdled one after another. He explained that the third story, which ordinarily houses the maternity and children’s wards, was selected for isolation because it could be shut off from the rest of the hospital activities and safe-guard other patients.  But there was the problem of obtaining stoves – and a gas line to feed them – washing machines and other equipment to set up “a hospital within a hospital.” At this point, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, represented by Giddings B. Tiffany, and the State Department of Health, represented by Dr. S. J. Dickey, epidemiologist, stepped in and helped organize the emergency quarters and its nursing staff.

Community Rallies

Speed was of vital importance.  A gas line was run from the basement along the outside of the building and into a third story window.  An appeal for stoves and washing machines not in use was responded to by storekeepers and housewives in surrounding communities.  Women dug out old blankets to be cut up into squares and used as hot packs in the new Sister Kenney method of treatment in infantile paralysis. An iron lung, bought for Lock Haven by its Exchange Club, was transported by truck to the Blossburg Hospital.

Nineteen nurses, most of them trained in orthopedic work, were brought into the hospital from other communities to administer the Sister Kenney treatment to polio patients under the direction of Miss Violet Pogorelzki, of Passaic, N.J. Dr. Lloyd G. Cole, chief surgeon who has been associated with the Blossburg Hospital for 26 years, and his assistant, Dr. Ralph P. Matter, took on the job of an epidemic besides their regular work.  At the peak of the polio outbreak, they were administering to 25 patients in the isolation ward.

Laboratory tests, so important in the diagnosis of polio, were done in the Blossburg Hospital’s own well equipped laboratory, where Mrs. Mary Bonnar officiates. Mrs. Bonnar, incidentally, is the wife of a serviceman, Lieut. Robert Bonnar, who has had overseas duty, and the mother of a one-year-old boy.  She spent a brief period as a technician in the Williamsport Hospital before her marriage when she was Mary Feeney of Ralston.

Saves 47 Patients

Of the 50 infantile paralysis patients which were hospitalized at Blossburg, only 3 died. Most of the cases were from Tioga County, although there was one from Bradford County, one from Lycoming County and one from New York State.  Eight victims from outside areas were admitted before the epidemic struck the community of Blossburg. 

While no one thought of material expense when it was a question of lives, the figures nevertheless are interesting.  The care of the 50 polio cases cost $10,400 – the principal burden of which is assumed by the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis. That organization also will meet the need of braces, etc., in cases where there are no other means of provision, and the State Health Department maintains a check on patients after they are discharged from the hospital and sends those not fully recovered to the convalescence center for infantile paralysis patients at Elizabethtown. As the hospital superintendent relates the story, the handling of the polio outbreak – without panic – in that area was an admirable piece of teamwork on the part of doctors, nurses, health authorities and families of the patients.

Praises Teamwork

I saw this same kind of teamwork displayed in another manner at the hospital.  Faced with the “national problem” of shortage of kitchen and dining room help, everyone does his own trotting back and forth from kitchen to dining room at mealtime.  This rule excludes no person, and there is no member of the staff who feels that he is lowering his dignity to stack his dinner dishes and take them to the kitchen.  The normal staff of the hospital is composed of 3 full-time doctors and 23 graduate nurses.  At the present there is a vacancy on the medial staff because the junior member was called into service.

The hospital clinic meets most of the medical needs of the community, since there is only one practicing physician in the borough.

Besides persons already mentioned, the staff includes Mrs. Catherine Kerwun, dietitian; Miss Ida Gailey, director of Nurses; Mrs. Annie Basch, a German refugee X-ray technician, and Mrs. Annie McNamara, operating room supervisor. Ambrose Manikowski, of Blossburg, is president of the board of trustees.  He is supported by John Gray, of Arnot, as vice president; Milton Barden, of Mansfield, treasurer; Mrs. Cora Tucker of Knoxville, secretary.  Trustees, Robert Irwine, Ogdensburg; Dr. John Turner, Wellsboro; Charles Crabbe, Germania; Mrs. Ethel Ashton, Knoxville, and Col. William White of the overseas armed Forces.