The ever-increasing demand for hospitals has brought into existence a new specialty, that of hospital architecture. Those who follow this new branch of the architectural profession have not found their road an easy one, inasmuch as each individual who has had the direction of the building of a hospital has his fad or hobby to work into the general order of things. It may be safely said that there has not been a hospital planned in the last twenty years wherein there has not been something injected of these hobbies and foibles, which are expensive at best and often absolutely unnecessary.
The general idea, the initial thought for the planning, is practically the same for all hospitals—the greatest amount of serviceability at the lowest cost consistent with a first-class structure, and a minimum of fixed and maintenance charge for the maximum work to be done.
Primarily all hospitals are the