Aftenposten
- I. The Rikshospital's Prehistory (1814–1826)
- II. The Rikshospital 1826–1883
- The Rikshospital's First 100 Years
Aftenposten marked the Rikshospital's centenary with a signed historical survey by the hospital's director, Dr. Sinding-Larsen. The opening section recalled that the Storting had decided in April 1816 to found a general hospital for 150 patients and a maternity institution for 30, both for treatment and for the practical training of doctors and midwives. A second, partly garbled section traced how the hospital in Akersgaten was pieced together from existing buildings: its own new wing on Grubbegaten was finished only in 1842, and additions such as a children's ward and the rented Sorgenfri for syphilitic men followed until 1854. A third part described how work on architect Schirmer's proposal began in 1866 while the building plans were disputed for nine years, just before Lister's antisepsis reached the Norwegian university clinic in the 1870s.
Translation
I. The Rikshospital's Prehistory (1814–1826)
…to Akershus County Hospital in Galgebergsgaten. In 1818 a temporary maternity institution was set up in an annex to the civil hospital. As early as April 1816 the Storting had decided to establish a general hospital for the realm (called "the Rikshospital" from 1818) for 150 patients and a maternity institution for 30 women in childbirth – first for the sake of treatment, then also for the practical instruction of doctors and midwives. After many deliberations…
II. The Rikshospital 1826–1883
16-10-1826 – "Aftenposten" by Dr. Sinding … Garrison Hospital … for medical and … patients. The branch in … opened on 1 November … 25 skin patients and … was closed already … new building was finished …7, but was requisitioned … the hospital, which did not … until 1837. … the institution. It had been moved … gaten; there arose … nearby Strøm…, and in great haste … women in childbed and infants … over to the Rikshospital. … that children were mixed up in the process! The Rikshospital's own new building facing Grubbegaten was not finished until 1842, 26 years after the founding of the hospital had been decided. Right up into the 1850s the hospital went on being improved and enlarged. In 1849 the institution got better rooms for its patients. In 1852 Sabrogaarden and Fangengaarden in Akersgaten were bought for staff and as isolation quarters; in 1853 Professor Faye had a small annex built as a children's ward for 1015 children; and in 1854 Sorgenfri ("Borgen") was rented for syphilitic men. With that the expansion of our first Rikshospital came to an end, which still in almost … buildings. … with 2 and ended … doctors and 1 … at any rate become … a 20 maal … stood empty … there were … medical, 61 sur… patients, 15 women … and the whole … or approximately … But otherwise … was successful … patients immediately after … strongly emphasized … too cramped, they were poor and the deficiencies … Weather outlook. A heavy snowfall of …
The Rikshospital's First 100 Years
…ring, on the proposal of the architect Schirmer, began in 1866, but the plans for the buildings were fought over for fully 9 years. The moment was exceedingly unfortunate for drawing up these plans. People did not know that they stood on the threshold of an entirely new epoch, which in this connection can be characterized in one word: antisepsis, the beginning of the exact scientific foundation that bacteriology, through Lister, gave first to wound hygiene and thereby to surgery, but later, by degrees, to all hygiene, not least hospital hygiene. Only well into the 1870s did Lister's teaching reach our university clinic, and it took more than a generation before it, in all its tremendous consequences for hospital hygiene as well, had fully entered the blood of our medical profession. What people strove for from the end of the 1860s, on the basis of the ideas of the time, was to plan a hospital with unspoiled air, since…
Context
A hospital for the whole realm, planned to train doctors
Sinding-Larsen dates the founding decision to April 1816, when, he writes, the Storting resolved to create a general hospital for 150 patients and a maternity institution for 30, first for treatment and then for the practical training of doctors and midwives. The medical historian Stein A. Evensen traces the formal origin to an earlier proposal for "a general hospital for the realm" with exactly those figures, 150 sick and 30 women in childbirth. Evensen also stresses that the hospital was meant from the outset to serve the whole kingdom and to work in close cooperation with the university. The article's pairing of treatment and teaching therefore reflects the institution's original purpose.
Why the first Rikshospital took so long to complete
The damaged second column describes a hospital assembled from borrowed buildings, and Evensen confirms the outline. At its opening on 16 October 1826 the converted military hospital held 100 beds divided between a medical and a surgical department. A maternity building next door, finished in 1827, was immediately annexed by the Rikshospital, and the maternity institution then moved around the town until 1837; the surviving fragments of the column, with words for "finished", "requisitioned" and the year 1837, fit this sequence. The hospital's own masonry wing facing Grubbegata was not ready for full use until 1842. The paper counts this as 26 years after the founding decision, while Evensen counts 18 years from the start of construction, so the two figures measure from different starting points. Evensen also records the 1854 lease of Sorgenfri for men with syphilis, matching the article's list of additions.
The move to Pilestredet and the director's verdict on its timing
The third excerpt turns to the successor hospital. According to Evensen, as early as 1859, after only 33 years of use, the Storting judged the Akersgata complex highly deficient and in need of replacement, and Øivind Larsen notes that work then began on a new Rikshospital, opened in Pilestredet in 1883. Sinding-Larsen adds his own judgement on the timing. In his account, work whose name is cut off in the scan began in 1866 on architect Schirmer's proposal, the building plans were disputed for nine years, and they were drawn up just before antisepsis transformed hospital hygiene. He writes that Lister's teaching reached the university clinic only in the 1870s and that planners from the late 1860s still aimed chiefly at "unspoiled air". These dates and this verdict are the director's own account in the centenary article.
The liquor prohibition vote two days later
The centenary issue appeared as Norway approached a vote on its liquor prohibition. Store norske leksikon records that an advisory referendum in 1919 preceded the Storting's introduction of a definitive prohibition in 1921, and it dates the new referendum to 18 October 1926, two days after this issue. The prohibition was lifted in 1927, after that vote. The hospital excerpts themselves do not mention the referendum, but the same front page carried a cartoon about it, and the words "Weather outlook. A heavy snowfall of …" at the end of the second translated section are a fragment of its caption. The calendar placed the Rikshospital's anniversary in the same week as the decision on prohibition.
Original
I. Rikshospitalets forhistorie (1814—1826).
til Agershus Amtssygehus i Galgebergsgaten. En midlertidig fødselsstiftelse blev i 1818 oprettet i en tilbygning til det civile sykehus. Allerede i april 1816 hadde Stortinget besluttet at oprette et almindelig hospital for riket (fra 1818 kaldet» Rikshospitalet «) til 150 syke og en fødselsstiftelse til 30 fødende, - først for behandlingens skyld, saa ogsaa for praktisk undervisning av læger og jordmødre. Efter mange overveielser blev
II. Rikshospitalet 1826—1883.
16-10-1826 - ' Aftenposten " av dr. Sinding gede Garnisonssykehus nger for medicinske og patienter. Filialen i aapnedes 1ste novemr 25 hudsyke og venen blev nedlagt allerede ns nye hus blev fær7, men beslaglagdes ospitalet, som ikke ra sig før i 1837. t e man la stiftel -. Den var blit flyttergaten; der opstod t nærliggende Strømr, og i hui og hast rselkvinder og spædover i Rikshospitalet. et om, at barn derunder blev forbyttet! Rikshospitalets egen nybygning mot Grubbegaten blev først færdig i 1842, 26 aar efter at hospitalets oprettelse var besluttet. Helt ut i 50-aarene fortsatte man at forbedre og utvide hospitalet. I 1849 fik stiftelsen bedre rum for sit belæg. I 1852 kjøptes Sabrogaarden og Fangengaarden i Akersgaten til funktionærer og isolationslokale, i 1853 fik profes sor F a y e en liten tilbygning opført til en barneavdeling for 1015 barn og i 1854 leiet man Sorgenfri (» Borgen «) til syfilitiske mænd. Dermed sluttet utbygningen av vort første rikshospital, som endnu i næsten bygninger. M med 2 og endte læger og 1 pr iallefald blit e en 20 maal sto tomt var der cinske, 61 kir patienter, 15 kvinder - tils ter, og det hel eller omtrent Men ellers var vellykket syke straks efter sterkt fremhol for trangt, de var slette og manglene ste Veirutsikt Et sterkt snefald av s
Rikshospitalets første 100-aar.
ring efter forslag av arkitekt S c h i r m e r begyndtes i 1866, men om planene for bebyggelsen stredes man i hele 9 aar. Tidspunktet var saare uheldig for utarbeidelse av disse planer. Man visste ikke, at man stod paa terskelen til en helt ny epoke, som i denne forbindelse kan karakteriseres med ett ord: Antiseptikken, begyndelsen til den eksakt videnskabelige grundvold, som bakteriologien gjennem L i s t e r gav først saarhygienen og dermed kirurgien, men siden efterhvert al hygiene, ikke minst hospitalshygienen. Først ute i 70-aarene naadde Listers lære vor universitetsklinik, og det tok mere end en menneskealder, før den i alle sine vældige konsekvenser ogsaa for sykehushygienen helt var gaat vor lægestand i blodet. Det man ut fra den tids forestillinger strævet med fra slutten av 60-aarene var at planlægge et sykehus med ubedærvet luft, idet