A 10 year-old's take on hospital stay, c.1950

In 1950, the sister of 10 year-old John Davidson was admitted to Lakewood Hospital for an appendectomy. John chronicled her stay in drawings, both real and imagined. On the front of a sheet of paper, entitled “My visitors today,” he depicted the daily routine of nurses, meals, recuperation, and visits by family and pastor. On the reverse John caricatured a far different nocturnal hospital experience, entitled “What goes on when your asleep.” In these drawings John envisioned multiple instrumental interventions, with tools more suited to workshop than hospital. John’s sister must have been amused by his imaginings, for she kept the sketches and almost a half century later they found their way into the archives at the Dittrick.

Dittrick 1993.42.2 obverse
Dittrick 1993.42.2 reverse