The Hospital

Two large, unplastered first- and second-floor rooms at the north end of the barracks served as the post hospital, and a makeshift isolation facility stood on Hospital Key almost two miles away. Although Fort Jefferson was considered a healthful post, the hospital register for 1862-1863 recorded treatments for 86 percent of the 580 men there; eighteen percent suffered from diarrhea and dysentery, and 19 percent developed fevers. Yellow fever remained a mysterious and terrifying killer until 1900, when it was proved to be transmitted by the mosquito aedes aegypti, which became increasingly dangerous from two to eight weeks after drinking yellow fever blood. The worst yellow fever epidemic came in 1867, when 270 of 400 people there were sick and 38 died, including post surgeon Dr. Joseph Smith, his young son, the four hospital nurses, and Commandant Valentine Stone and his wife. Prisoner Dr. Samuel Mudd assumed Dr. Smith's duties and was joined by Dr. Daniel Whitehurst of Key West and later Dr. Edward Thomas. Yellow fever struck again in 1873, when half of about 24 cases proved fatal, and after this epidemic was followed by a damaging hurricane, the Army decided to abandon Fort Jefferson, with the garrison departing in 1874.