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TRICENTENNIAL

TEXAS ICON

was also its First Hospital

By David Schulz

ew visiting the Alamo know its distinction as the first The infirmary, partially repaired from its deteriorated condition
F hospital in Spanish Texas. Manuel Antonio Cordero y to provide a clean room, occupied an upstairs portion of the old
Bustamante, acting governor of Texas, established an
convento or Long Barrack.
infirmary on the site on October 19, 1805 to care of The area's only physician, a civil servant of the Spanish govern-
soldiers stationed on the frontier. ment, was commissioned to treat all the residents of the county, in-
He wrote his superior: I have provided, without any cost whatever cluding the military. The hospital existed throughout the occupation
... the equipment of a partly ruined chamber in the secularized Mis- of the Alamo by Spanish troops.
sion San Antonio de Valero as a military infirmary. I have had it In addition to the physician, who was paid 30 pesos a month,
provided with beds made of reeds in order to avoid the dampness there was one nurse, a male, who was paid 12 pesos a month, and a
of the ground. The patients of all companies or posts who may be woman to do the cooking for the patients, who was paid 8 pesos a
sent here will be placed in them under the necessary care of a nurse, month. The population of San Antonio at that time was approxi-
a woman to take care of the kitchen and guard of the company of mately 300.
the Alamo which is stationed in that mission. Due to the increasing number of patients, the governor had two

18 San Antonio Medicine • April 2018