Chimborazo Hospital Complex, Richmond

A staff member in the museum at Chimborazo Park described the organization and structures at Chimborazo Hospital during the Civil War. Note the diorama showing various buildings of the hospital complex. They were built to allow fresh air and sunlight to penetrate each ward.

The military hospitals on both sides of the war had to be well-planned in order to serve the large number of patients that they received. Most patients were admitted due to illness rather than wounds because the incidence of contagion was tremendous in the large camps where soldiers were housed.

The sign behind the speaker explains that the hospital systems of the Civil War years became models for the American hospital system that we have today.