The text describes the municipal hospital in Zhytomyr, founded back in 1761 by the bibliographer and librarian, Father Bishop Józef Andrzej Załuski. The history of the hospital's existence is cited, as well as the question of its relocation and new, already 19th-century construction. The building itself is also described (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1866, T:13, pp. 148-149., after: University of Łódź Digital Library).

A modernised reading of the text

City hospital in Zhytomyr.

On the hills of the Teterov River, covered with lush vegetation amidst the most beautiful surroundings of the city, the most ancient charitable institution in Zhytomyr stood magnificently. Its first foundation was laid here in 1761 by the well-known librarian and bibliographer, Bishop Jozef Andrzej Załuski, whose noble idea was supported by generous donations and benefactors. It was thanks to their efforts that the original wooden hospital was built in the town itself, on the side where the lane to the cathedral is now cut through from the Vilnia gravel road.

The house occupied for this purpose, after the establishment was moved to a newly erected building, still stood for a long time with its former layout of rooms and was rented to private individuals by the Chapter, to whose ownership it returned. When the government authorities in 1766 and 1775, recognising the inconvenience of the locality and the building, authorised the relocation of the establishment, after several projects which did not hold up, the hill above Teterow was finally chosen as the most suitable in terms of purity of air and other sanitary measures.

This hill was formerly called the Popovka Wilderness and, divided into small pieces, was occupied by the huts and furs of burghers and noblemen on the riverbank. In 1814, one such furor, consisting of a dozen or so small orchards, was purchased from Jakub Szczepkowski, vice-regent of the Żytomirsk castle, in the Popówka Wilderness. Later, in 1817, Samuel Hanski donated his yard, which was adjacent to the farm purchased from Szczepkowski, for this purpose.

Finally, smaller pieces of land were bought on this site from various owners. The contribution to the new building fund started in 1805 under the authority of the government provided the necessary funds, so that the foundations of the building were laid on 2 May 1816, and it was finally completed in 1819. The entire two-storey edifice, magnificent from the river side, is built in a square; its walls are 86 arches long and 21 arches high.

The wall of the chapel, crowned with a spherical cupola, appears somewhat oval. Its sharp-arched windows and the whole exterior, leaning out of the thicket of trees, namely from afar, offer a charming view. In the courtyard there are spacious outbuildings and farm buildings. There used to be a brewery, a windmill and a horse mill here, which no longer exists today. There were even two attempts in 1807 to establish a watermill on the Popówka river, which now only flows through a narrow spring, but they failed.

The former hospital board also produced bricks and lime for its own use. This establishment, which since 1796 had been under the superintendence of the general welfare magistrate, came under its direct and exclusive management in 1842, and in 1853 it became the seat of the military hospital department.