Alexandra Hospital for Contagious Diseases

The Alexandra Hospital was constructed from 1904 to 1906 in Pointe-Saint-Charles, Montreal, to care for English-speaking children and adolescents with infectious diseases. At that time, such care included isolating patients in dedicated wards; the main ones at the Alexandra were for measles, diphtheria, and scarlet fever. In 1948, it opened a tuberculosis ward specialized for meningeal disease. Because of the declining incidence of “epidemic” childhood infections, the hospital dropped the modifier “for contagious disease” from its name in 1968, and it changed its mission to long-term care of children with physical and mental disabilities. In 1973, it merged with the Montreal Children’s Hospital (becoming its Alexandra Pavilion). The latter closed in 1988, and its buildings have since been converted into residential (social housing) units.