When planning hospital buildings, the Russians followed the hygiene principle. The hospitals in Viapori were located separate from the other barracks, on the island of Pikku-Mustasaari, dubbed Ostrov Gospitalnyi, the Hospital Island.. Diseases were part of daily life in the fortress, with the dreaded cholera paying a visit to Viapori on several occasions in the 19th century, for example. A major cholera epidemic ravaged Viapori in connection with the Crimean War. The hospital island also had a morgue. Today, the hospital building in Pikku-Mustasaari houses the Naval Academy.

 

The hygiene principle in construction

 

In Russia, the corridor-type layout was regarded as one with poor ventilation and, therefore, unhygienic. In hospitals, a side passage was the preferred solution, enabling the construction of ventilation windows and a wealth of natural light in the passage. They were also important considerations in sickrooms. The broad side passage also gave the patients an opportunity to stretch their legs.

 

Hygiene was also behind the objective of placing wards for infective diseases separate from other premises. Separate wards were reserved for patients with typhoid, scabies or venereal diseases. Kitchens and privies were grouped together in their own blocks in order to prevent their “foul air” from entering other quarters. Privies were built behind the hospitals in wings with the form of a “T”, and were equipped with air ducts intended for conducting air quickly out of the premises. Sewage was conducted along a gutter to the sea, in keeping with the fashion of the period.

 

Hospital buildings on the island of Pikku-Mustasaari

 

While there had been an urgent need for a hospital during the Swedish era, the large building, projected for construction on the island of Länsi-Mustasaari, was never built. Patients were treated in hospitals housed in tent or huts. The Russians converted the Craftsmen’s Barracks, located in the Artillery Yard in the island of Pikku-Mustasaari, into the Naval War Hospital. An Orthodox church was also located next to the hospital. Two new hospitals were built in the island, one being the responsibility of the army, the other, the navy’s. The long and impressive hospital building , which is believed to have been drawn by Carl Ludvig Engel, was built between 1828 and 1831, and its construction was contracted by merchants Sinebrychoff, Ushakoff and Kiseleff. Like the other military barracks of the period, it represented the unrendered and sparingly decorated brick architecture. The construction of another 200-bed hospital began in 1849, lasting three years. The floor plan of the hospital building was similar to the hospital built around twenty years earlier, which represented the empire style and was drawn by Engel. The buildings were joined with ??nivelosat and corridors. After the Crimean War, efforts were made to make the new buildings bombproof.

 

Patients in the hospitals

 

The Russian construction principles emphasised hygiene and economy. However, patients were not treated with the most recent methods. It has been said that the budgets of hospitals were determined by the number of their patients, not by their therapeutic outcomes. Patients in hospitals were grouped by gender and rank. Hospitals had quarters for convalescents, two wards for female patients, and a ward known as the lower rank ward. The buildings also housed quarters for the rank and file, premises dedicated to surgery and anatomy, and kitchens. While infectious diseases spread easily in the quarters for the rank and file, it was only during the First World War that a ward for infectious diseases was built on the hospital island.