Step into the Spanish Military Hospital on Aviles Street, where Second Spanish Period medicine is brought back to life. This museum interprets medical practices of the Second Spanish Period (1784–1821), and is open seven days a week from 9 am to 5 pm. Tours begin on demand throughout the day and lead you through a surgical demonstration, an apothecary demonstration, and a tour of the medicinal herb garden.
The complex you see was a three-part facility: Hospital West, constructed in the First Spanish Period; Hospital East, constructed during the British Period; and the Apothecary in the William Watson House, also built in the British Period after a Scottish carpenter named William Watson purchased and remodeled the building during the British occupation of St. Augustine (1763–1783). During the Second Spanish Period these three parts, with their outbuildings and gardens, functioned together as a strictly military hospital—only military were treated there and only military served on the staff. You can also note that Hospital West burned in 1818, and that Aviles Street, the lane running between the two wings, was called Hospital Street until it was renamed in 1924.
Picture surgeons and apothecaries at work in these three wings, treating only the military who served here.