Page 24 - Delaware Medical Journal - October 2016
P. 24
Beebe staff poses with patients in the Shaw Building solarium in the 1930s.
Beebe Healthcare:
Physicians Carry
a Dream for 100 Years Pam George
By the early 20th century, modern medicine had arrived in Wilmington. The Homeopathic Hospital and the Delaware Hospital opened in 1888 and 1890 respectively.
The Physicians and Surgeons Hospital began seeing patients in 1910. But it was a different story downstate. The 12-bed Milford Emergency Room was established in 1912, but Sussex County’s reach it. The hospital at the Delaware Breakwater Quarantine Station in Lewes, founded in 1884, was dedicated to immigrants with contagious diseases.
Inspired by the Mayo brothers, Dr. James Beebe Sr. and Dr.
three-bed hospital on Savannah Road in Lewes, their hometown. The hospital consisted of the frame structure that had housed their practice and a cement block addition, which their father, Richard Beebe, built using a machine from Sears & Roebuck.
One hundred years after its humble start, the hospital that the brothers founded is licensed for 210 beds. Beebe Healthcare has three major outpatient campuses, two smaller outpatient
312
Del Med J | October 2016 | Vol. 88 | No. 10
