Hospital Sketches

"Hospital Sketches" by Robert Swain Peabody is a set of essays that capture the author's time in a hospital during an era of medical progress. It broadly covers the emotions and beliefs tied to patient treatment, focusing intensely on how pain, healing, and hospital atmosphere connect. Using a narrative style that shares his experience recovering in Johns Hopkins Hospital, Peabody compares the focus of helpful, modern-day hospitals to monasteries of old, showing the commitment of hospital workers. Through depictions, he paints a bright picture of the area and the personalities of the patients and medical staff, all while pondering suffering, purpose, and how community impacts getting better.