Harvard Hospital, Salisbury

The Harvard hospital was built in the early 1940s; and, for administrative convenience of the United Kingdom's (UK's) Ministry of Health it was to fall within the 'umbrella' of an UK Emergency Hospital building programme. However, Harvard Medical School was responsible for designing the hospital; transporting it to the UK as a timber, pre-fabricated, field hospital; and erecting it at a chosen site in England.^[1] Harvard Medical School brought in the American Red Cross as a partner, as the American Red Cross had a greater experience of fund raising; and experience of sending volunteers to work in foreign countries on Disaster response.

By July 1941, France had fallen and there was a fear of the spread of infectious diseases arising from both this and aerial bombardment of British cities. The hospital, with American help, was specifically set up to address that threat. It was to be the first Infectious Diseases hospital, of its type, in the United Kingdom.^[2]

America was legally neutral at this time, under the U.S. Neutrality Act. However, both the president of Harvard University and the dean of their medical school wished to provide direct medical assistance to the United Kingdom's medical profession. In face-to-face discussions with the chief medical officer, at the UK's Ministry of Health, Harvard University was prepared to offer a group of experts in bacteriology, epidemiology, nutrition, sanitation, medicine and surgery.^[2] The UK's chief medical officer was concerned that a group of American medical experts would find it difficult to fit in to the English Public Health System, which was very different to the American system. So it was decided that Harvard University would supply the UK with a complete infectious diseases unit, fully equipped and staffed.^[2] It was to be sited close to Salisbury, as there was a lack of hospitals in this area capable of treating patients with infectious diseases. The hospital was also to be equipped with a mobile infectious diseases field-unit that could be moved around, to carry out field tests anywhere in the United Kingdom.^[2]

Professor John E. Gordon, Professor of Preventative Medicine, at Harvard University, was put in charge of the project of designing the prefabricated hospital.^[2]

The Ministry of Health (for England and Wales) was responsible for buying the land, for the chosen hospital site; providing access to necessary under-ground services, including a water supply, electricity, sewage; and, building a central bolier house to supply the heat for the centrally heated buildings supplied by the United States.^[1][2] Buildings built by the Ministry of Heath, in contrast to the Harvard Medical School buildings, would be built out of brick. By this stage of the United Kingdom's Emergency Hospital building programme timber was scarce and its use as a constructional material was prohibited: brick with minimal use of steel-rod reinforcements was the preferred building material.^[3]

The Harvard Hospital was assembled on a chosen site, at Harnham, on the outskirts of the City of in Salisbury 1941. It was laid out as a complex of twenty-two standard-size prefabricated buildings.^[1] Ten of these buildings extended at right angles from a long central covered boardwalk and were used as hospital wards. The remaining six buildings, which connected to the main covered boardwalk, housed support services such as laboratories, administration, laundry facilities and a central kitchen.^[1]

A further six buildings - comprising, two groups of three staggered buildings - located some distance from the main hospital complex, served as residential accommodation for the American doctors and medical personnel assigned to operate the hospital.^[1][4]

This was almost entirely provided by the joint efforts of Harvard University and the US Red Cross. So as to comply with the Neutrality Act, the American Red Cross had overall control of the hospital.^[2] The UK's Ministry of Health continued to be responsible for funding certain day-to-day running costs, such as maintaining and paying for: the water supply, sewage disposal, electricity, heating the site, running the laundry; and buying and cooking the food.^[2]

The hospital was scheduled to be ready for receiving patients by 22 September 1941.^[2] It had fewer patient's beds than other emergency hospitals set up under emergency hospital-building programme, in this case only 125 beds spread across ten wards, but it hosted a fully equipped emergency public health laboratory to handle infectious diseases. In addition, it provided on-site living accommodation and facilities for the American volunteer doctors, nurses and non-medical personnel; a decontamination unit was provided.^[2]

Statistics later showed that a majority of its patients were infectious troop casualties brought back from Europe, but there were, also, civilian patients.^[2]

When the United States entered the Second World War, the Red Cross and Harvard University pulled their staff out, but some staff stayed behind. In July 1942, the hospital was handed over to the US military authorities with Professor John E. Gordon remaining, to act as liaison officer between the United Kingdom's Ministry of Health and the American military authority - named as Paul Ramsey Hawley, Command Surgeon of the European Theater of Operations, United States Army.^[2]

Extra buildings were erected almost immediately on the site: to accommodate United States Army technicians; provide a training school; and, to provide extra laboratories. In total, another twenty buildings were added to the original twenty two buildings provided by Harvard Medical School.

The hospital was run by US Army personnel until the end of the Second World War.

The final, and longest use, of the Harvard Hospital, Salisbury was as a 'home' for the Common Cold Unit. It opened in 1946 and closed in 1989.

In 1945, after the US Army had vacated the site, the American Red Cross and Harvard Medical School kindly presented the hospital, free of charge, to the UK's Ministry of Health.^[2] For a short while, the Royal Pioneer Corps took charge of the hospital site;^[5] and the centrally heated buildings on the site were used for storage.^{[nb 1]}

The virologist Christopher Andrewes, who was head of the National Institute for Medical Research's Division of Bacteriology and Virus Research, was interested in using the site for Common Cold research, by exposing Human Volunteers to various viruses suspected to be responsible for infecting humans with the Common Cold.^[1]

The Common Cold Unit was to make use of many of the original twenty two buildings provided in 1941 by Harvard Medical School / American Red Cross. As the unit was to use live human volunteers for testing, there was a need to isolate small groups of volunteers from other small groups of volunteers; and from the medical staff. In addition, the volunteers would not allowed to go into residential areas of Salisbury. So, there was a continuing need to retain many of the former-hospital facilities: particularly a first aid room, a medical examination room for the Matron, an X-ray room; as well as domestic facilities such as: the laundry, central food stores and the central kitchen for cooking the meals.

The main change was firstly to adapt the six, stand-alone, residential staff accommodation buildings for housing the trials Volunteers, in semi-isolation. The Common Cold Unit needed, typically, twenty four volunteers per ten-day test, but that number might increase on certain trials. Dividing each of these six buildings, across the width of the building, into two self-contained halves, with each half having its own entrance porch, would provide the space for a total of twenty four volunteers: with two people sharing a self-contained accommodation unit. The twelve porches at the ends of each flat were linked by newly constructed semi-enclosed, covered, boardwalks leading back to the central hospital covered boardwalk.

Some of the, slightly newer, (1942–1945) buildings added by the United States Army, particularly the new laboratories used for viral and infectious diseases research and testing were taken into use, unmodified. However, ten of the specialised buildings used by the United States Army for their Blood distribution centre, supplying blood for the European theatre of operations, were no longer needed and, they were demolished.