22 ADOBE, BRICK & STEEL
Miners’ Insurance Plan A Miners’ Insurance Hospital Plan, the first of its kind in this part of the country, was proposed in mid-1850 by G.W. Knobel, M.D. This insurance would cost $25 per month, and persons with no insurance would pay regular hospital charges. The hospital building would be paid for with shares. There would be one resident physician and two consultants. Outside doctors might attend patients but they must pay for nursing care. The poor would be treated “gratis.” Plans were still being made at the end of the year, but no further mention of the Miners’ Hospital Plan has been found. 32 Remembering the sickness of previous months and hop ing to prevent a repetition, the following notice by Drs. James S. Martin and Benjamin R. Carman appeared in the Sacra mento Transcript on October 24,1850: “In anticipation of there being a great deal of distress in our community this season by sickness, the [subscribers] who have been Physicians of the Sutter’s Fort Hospital since the first settlement of the city have opened a Free Office of General Dispensary, where those who are not able to pay the fees of an attending physician, and all others who may patronize our Establishment, can obtain Medicines at a low rate and Advice Gratis.”
