When people think of Bellevue Hospital, the following images come to mind: dangerous infectious disease patients, mad mental patients, victims of scaly cases, homeless homeless people. As the oldest public hospital in the United States, Bellevue has long been a part of American history that cannot be ignored. It rescues the disreputed and cares for the most vulnerable. It has withstood unknown diseases, economic upheaval, political upheaval, and natural disasters, as well as important innovations and ongoing controversies in the history of modern medicine, and even played a central role in three major medical crises involving the President of the United States.
Bellevue has rewritten the history of American medicine. It was the first hospital in the United States to have an obstetrics and gynecology, emergency room, and affiliated medical school; It established the first civilian ambulance corps in U.S. history, opened the first female nursing school, and led to the establishment of the nation's first public health department in New York City; It is always ahead of its time in forensics, psychiatry and infectious diseases.
Bellevue is also a source of inspiration for artists and Hollywood, leaving a deep imprint on American pop culture. Saul Bellow, Alan Ginsburg, and Richard Yates have all left a mark for Bellevue in their works, and Billy Wilder and Francis Coppola even brought the hospital to the big screen.
In the United States, people who can afford it often choose to seek medical care in private hospitals, while the health of the poor is only protected by public hospitals like Bellevue. Bellevue's patients come from all over the world, many of whom cannot afford medical care, but Bellevue has never turned down a single patient. This also means that the history of the hospital has never been smooth, and it has taken on society's responsibilities to the poor with almost meagre returns.
Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner David Osinsky spent years researching and interviewing to write this fascinating history of hospitals.
Bellevue: The Death and Life of America's Public Hospital
By David Osinsky
Translated by Wu Zhongming
Published by Yilin Publishing House
Those celebrities who have lived in Bellevue
"Sent to Bellevue" – a phrase almost as old as New York City, first used in the 18th century to describe yellow fever patients being rushed to a desolate isolation hospital by the East River, is now so well-known that newspapers don't bother to add the word "hospital" to the headlines: "Ebola doctor sent to Bellevue", "Women scratched by circular saw blades sent to Bellevue", "Famous graffiti artist arrested for hitting people with beer glasses - sent to Bellevue".
It's literally a ritual. "If a police officer gets shot in Manhattan, his first choice is often Bellevue... If an investment banker goes into cardiac arrest, his limousine driver knows where to take him. Eric Mannheimer, former medical director of Bellevue Hospital, wrote. Firefighters are injured, prisoners are sick, workers fall from scaffolding, homeless people pass out on the street, and the same goes for – the destination is likely to be Bellevue. If a visiting pope or president needs urgent medical care, the hospital's state-of-the-art emergency department is on track.
Bellevue closely reflects a changing New York. In Bellevue, more than 100 languages have been translated, the most common being Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Polish, Bengali, French and Haitian Creole. With the help of well-trained interpreters who are familiar with the local dialects, doctors and patients communicate via two-line telephone. Doctors and nurses often mention that foreigners arrive at JFK and call a taxi with only one word: "Bellevue." ”
They know they won't be turned away. For centuries, every immigrant group was placed under the Bellevue umbrella; Every disaster and epidemic fills its humble wards. "It has never been the cleanest place in the world – how can it be the cleanest since its purpose is always to receive patients who can be called 'human scum'?" William A. Nolen, a talented surgeon, pointed out: "Hospitals are often filled with patients suffering from typhoid, cholera, and yellow fever, and within minutes of death, the bodies are loaded into coffins, and new patients lie on the beds. ”
Counting the number of pneumonia patients in the hospital's chest department can track the severity of the New York winter; Counting the total number of poisoned bodies in the morgue allows an assessment of the harm of Prohibition. When tuberculosis was rampant in the city, Bellevue sought medical treatment for tuberculosis. The onset of AIDS, the surge in violent crime, cocaine use by addicts, and the homelessness of the mentally ill out of prison are often discovered by Bellevue.
Few hospitals are so deeply rooted in our popular culture. Sheltering victims of violent crime, the mentally ill, and hopeless homeless was common in Bellevue, but at the end of the 19th century, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pleitzer launched a newspaper circulation war, producing sensational reports (most notably Nellie Bligh's Ten Days in the Asylum), which had an indelible impact. Since then, the hospital has become synonymous with an insane asylum, obscuring its great achievements in clinical care and medical research.
Hollywood found Bellevue irresistible appeal. Billy Wilder's "Lost Weekend," which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1945, took place for much of the film, which The New York Times called "an ugly experience in Bellevue's alcoholics ward." There is also a hospital scene in the cute movie "Miracle on 34th Street": the absurdly proud Chris Collingler is locked in a small cell with a seal on the window, and others think he is paranoid and recommended for hospitalization. When filming "The Godfather", in search of the most intimidating hospital, Francis Ford Coppola naturally chose Bellevue, whose morgue was used as the funeral home of the character Bonasera in the film later in the plot.
To make matters worse, Bellevue is not far from Greenwich Village, and ambulances are quick to arrive. As a result, Bellevue's 600-bed psychiatric building is a revolving door to countless writers, artists and musicians suffering from various mental illnesses. William Burroughs cut off one of his fingers to please his lover and spent some time in Bellevue. Delmore Schwartz was handcuffed after trying to strangle a hostile book critic. Eugene O'Neill is a frequent visitor to the alcoholics ward, calling him by his first name with the staff. Sylvia Plath arrived after a nervous breakdown, and saxophonist Charlie "Big Bird" Parker was hospitalized after two suicide attempts in 1954 (he died the following year). It is said that bassist Charles Mingus voluntarily signed and was admitted to the hospital to avoid a business dispute with the mafia. Later, he created the harsh "Lock Them Up (Bellevue's Hell Scene)" to reflect his inner manic mood.
Poets and novelists such as Saul Bellow, Alan Ginsburg, and Richard Yates have left a mark on Bellevue in their works. But the most detailed primary account remains unpublished. In 1960, Norman Mailer drunkenly stabbed his wife in anger and was sent to Bellevue, apparently because her wife mocked him for not being qualified to shine Dostoevsky's shoes. Mailer kept a private diary of the 17 days he was hospitalized for observation; It is full of details, and it reads like a story without a plot. The sick came and went, the guards brandished fists and clubs to maintain order, and the garments were used to discipline the most vicious criminals. The two men were close to unconscious when they returned to Mailer's hospital room. "Both had undergone shock therapy, they were biting pipes, sitting on pillows with their buttocks and their hands over their heads. Wow, drool. "Mailer considered writing his friends in Bellevue into a feature-length journalism work, but never made the trip." I bid them farewell," I wrote at the end of the diary, "and I was saddened to leave them." ”
John Lennon's assassin, Mark David Chapman, faced a very different situation: the staff who admired Lennon so much resented him that some doctors doubted whether they could make a fair diagnosis. "When I first learned I was going to see him, I was worried that anger at him would affect my work," Bellevue's chief psychologist recalls, "but he was such a poor guy that I said 'hello,' and he smiled at me and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have laughed.'" Meanwhile, Lennon's body was wrapped in a sheet and lay in the Bellevue morgue several buildings away.
Some of the most famous patients come here quietly. The great composer Stephen Foster was sent to Bellevue in 1863 with a hole in his skull; In 1910, the prolific short story writer O. Henry was sent in for cirrhosis; Legendary blues singer Led Bailey was sent in 1949 for a bone infection caused by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease. There are no private wards or private doctors, nor special amenities. They came because they were destitute and terminally ill, and all three died while receiving emergency treatment. Their experiences reflect the essence of Bellevue more than Mailer and Chapman. In 2014, a previously unknown song by Led Bailey mysteriously surfaced: "Bellevue Hospital Blues", written a few days before his death. The song is a thank you note expressing his gratitude for the care he has received.
By David Osinsky
Editor: Jiang Chuting
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