Hospitals
Before the 20th century, most hospitals were specialized to treat a specific condition, like tuberculosis or small pox. However, no real treatments were offered at these facilities and it was more of a way of containing the people who had these conditions, so the spread of the disease could be limited. Once the 20th century started, General Hospitals started appearing as well, but with little government oversight and almost no accountability for the doctors working in these hospitals, many patients would be better off not going to these places. At the time, doctors had no idea what bacteria and viruses were and that they can be spread from person to person. The consequences of this ignorance was what you see in the photo. Patients don't have their own rooms and no one is isolated when they have a deadly disease, which makes it very easy for the disease to spread. For example, a patient like Jurgis, who has broken his harm would come to the hospital and be put in a bed very close to someone with small pox. It's a miracle that Jurgis didn't contract a deadly infection when he was in the hospital. Furthermore, with the amount of injuries at the factories and the weak condition of all the workers, most of the people that went to these hospitals would die. If by some miracle he didn't die he definitely wouldn't be able to work again for quite some time, and while he is recovering from the injuries and illness that others have caused, his family is starving. Every time, someone in Jurgis' family got injured the family fell on hard times. The family needed that income to keep food on the table and without it they are unable to sustain themselves. In addition, no worker saw any help from the factories that injured them. Jurgis worked 12 hours a day for very little pay and would get regularly get injured on the job. However, he would see no help during his recovery and the boss gave his position away very quickly. When he was finally able to work again, he could not work anywhere because he was damaged goods. Upton Sinclair shows the devastating consequences of these injuries because he wants intuitions, like the factories and hospitals, to have more accountability for their workers and support them when they injured on the job.