Boston Floating Hospital 
Season of fSyj 
Directors: Edward Everett Hale, D.D.; Dr. Samuel 
Breck, 172 Commonwealth Ave., Supt. Medical Depart- 
ment ; Rev. Rufus B. Tobey, Berkeley Temple, Managing 
Director. vl/ \|/ \tj \fj ■ HE Floating Hospital is designed first 
of all for sick babies, everything else 
giving way to the plan and purpose 
to do all that possibly can be done 
to start the baby on the road to health. 
To this end a barge is fitted up with 
hammocks and cots, a dispensary is 
located on board, and the vessel is divided into wards, 
each one in charge of a skilled physician and a trained 
nurse. No food is allowed to be brought on board, but 
AT THE WHARF. 
both medicines and foods are prescribed by the physi- 
cian and dispensed by the hospital steward and the 
commissary. 
Several striking facts are to be noted. In the first 
place, a work of this sort is limited to the hottest months 
3 A HOSPITAL WARD. of the year, July and August, when infants most easily 
succumb to disease. 
Again, during the summer the majority of sick babies, 
whose cases are 
not hopeless, 
receive ample 
benefit from a 
single all-day 
treatment on 
the salt water, 
under the care 
and supervis- 
ion of skilled 
physicians and 
trained nurses. 
It is fortunate 
that this is so, 
otherwise the 
summet hos- 
pitals would be 
overcrowded. 
One of the 
chief objects 
aimed at in the 
Floating Hos- 
pital service is to place the responsibility for' the care 
of the sick baby upon the mother. 
While on board the Floating Hospital 
a doctor and a nurse look out for its 
welfare ; she is taught what to do for 
the child between trips, and reports 
each time she returns with it. The 
experience thus acquired is invalu- 
able. 
It is not extravagant to say that a 
day on the water, with the influences 
of air and sunlight and proper and 
5 constant care, is the means of saving many lives. One in- 
stance, not an exceptional one, will suffice to show this. 
A dispensary nurse took from its mother a child ap- 
parently in a moribund condition, and brought her to 
the boat for a day’s outing and treatment. The physician 
in charge of the 
Floating Hospital 
objected to receiving 
the baby, on the 
ground that it could 
not live the day out 
under the most favor- 
able circumstances, 
but the nurse assured 
him that she would 
assume the responsi- 
bility, and she was 
allowed to make the 
trip with the child. 
A PATIENT AND HIS CHARMER. 
A few days afterwards the child was playing about the 
streets. 
We take children for more than one trip, where ne- 
cessary, and if the condition of our treasury permitted 
6 it, would make at least four trips per week. The sub- 
scriptions last year to this most beneficent charity were 
$1962.68, and the expenses about $1233.00, leaving a 
balance in hand at the close of the season of $729.68. 
This balance is about equal to the receipts from the two 
auction sales given at Hotel Pemberton and the Atlantic 
House, under the patronage of Mrs. C. H. Hayes and 
Mrs. Josiah Hayden, in the latter part of August, but 
these contributions were received at a season when it was 
deemed inadvisable to extend the work on account of 
uncertain weather conditions. Since that time we have 
received $1100.84, $rooo.00 °f which is the generous 
donation of the trustees of the estate of the late John H. 
Dix. Deducting a few minor expenditures we have there- 
fore on hand $1817.77, which constitutes the present 
working capital of the Floating Hospital. A little 
more is expected from a certain source, but not a very 
large amount. 
On the five trips of last year more than 1100 children 
and 650 mothers or attendants were given the benefit of 
Floating Hospital trip and treatment at an average cost 
of $246.35. This coming season we should like to make 
twenty trips, and for this purpose shall need at least 
$5000.00, or $250.00 per trip. This will provide intelli- 
gent instruction for the mothers, with proper food and 
medicine and constant care for three to four hundred 
poor, sick, helpless babies. In New York City some of 
the noble men and women interested in the Floating 
Hospital of St. John’s Guild assume the entire expense of a 
single trip. Further information will be gladly furnished 
by Rufus B. Tobey, Berkeley Temple, South End “A” 
(Telephone “ Tremont ion ”), to whom contributions 
may be sent and to whose order checks should be made 
payable. Dr. F. H. Brown, Treasurer of the Seaside 
Hospital, 4 Exchange Place, Boston, has also kindly 
consented to receive contributions. 
7 AT ANCHOR.