Hospital Sketches

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism, illness, and death.

Alcott becomes ill, and a young surgeon urges her to rest. Others warn her that she might catch pneumonia. She resists their admonitions, but when her coughing and dizziness become severe, she accepts that she must rest and leave the caring to others.

In case any of her readers are inclined to imbue “hospital life with a halo of charms,” she describes its “ruinous condition” (47). The windows are cracked, floor bare, mattresses thin, mirror the size “of a muffin, and about as reflective” (47), and rats inhabit her closet. Despite the unappetizing food, it is gobbled up quickly, and any latecomers to meals find little left. Not wanting to neglect her patients for mealtimes, Alcott stocks crackers, cheese, and apples, but the rats and bugs have their way with the cheese and crackers, and the apples vanish, probably filched by children. When she first goes off duty, she tries to continue appearing at meals so as not to distract others from their work, but after losing her appetite, she seeks a cure in exercising outdoors in the sun.

Though it is January, the days are mild. She explores the city.