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Cook County Hospital,[Footnote 1] now John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County,[Footnote 2] is a hospital located in the Near West Side area of the city of Chicago.

Description[]

In Fool Moon, Harry Dresden describes Cook County Hospital as a virtual city of its own inside Chicago as he is driving past it.[1]

In Small Favor, Dresden describes the new Stroger Hospital building as sort of looking like a castle. "If you scrunched up your eyes a little, you could almost imagine its features as medieval ramparts and towers and crenallation, standing like some ancient mountain bastion, determined to defend the citizens of Chicago against the plagues and evils of the world."[2]

In the series[]

Fool Moon[]

In Fool Moon, Harry Dresden briefly passes by the hospital while using a tracking spell to hunt down Tera West.[1]

Grave Peril[]

In Grave Peril, the Hospital is where Harry Dresden and Michael Carpenter encounter the ghost of Agatha Hagglethorn on the fourth floor nursery, and it is there that Agatha's ghost used a sleep spell that flattened the entire ward of the Hospital. The spell (which is in the form of a Lullaby) almost kills the infants in the nursery, by inducing the infants into a deep sleep like coma, in which they slowly stop breathing.[3]

Cook County Hosp-Hist 1

Later, Charity Carpenter is brought there after she was abducted by the Nightmare at Graceland for complications with her pregnancy. The baby is born and not doing well—something the Nightmare did to him. Dresden tries to get stitches by Dr. Simmons from his battle with the Nightmare, but he had been healed by the Leanansidhe and the doctor scolds him. Detective John Stallings then brings Dresden the Book of Shadows, Leonid Kravos' wizard-diary.[4]

At the end, in an ironic twist of fate, Dresden is put in the same room with Charity Carpenter who starts in on him the moment he awakes.[5]

Dead Beat[]

In Dead Beat, Harry Dresden is saved from Corpsetaker, who invaded Dresden's mind, and Li Xian, who wounded Dresden, by Marcone and Gard. Marcone gives Dresden the names of two EMTs who witnessed the murder of one of his people. Then they drop him off at Cook County Hospital to get treated and to hopefully interview the EMTs: Gary Simmons and Jason Lamar.[6]

Small Favor[]

In Small Favor, after the battle on Demonreach when Michael Carpenter joined Dresden in the rescue of Ivy, he was gravely wounded. He was brought back to Chicago's Stoger Hospital, where he was extensively operated.[2]

Real world description[]

Stoger front view

New Stronger building front "Castle" view

Cook County Hospital is a complex of varrying hospital facilities, including a main hospital building, and a University combined. It includes multiple buildings: some are varrying patient care buildings, some are teaching buildings, residences, and more. The original main hospital building was established in the mid-late 1800s and has recently been replaced by a new state of the art hospital and renamed John H. Stoger Hospital of Cook County, in 2001. It seems possible that residents might still call it Cook County Hospital, as they have for nearly a century and a half. 

The hospital complex is located in the Near-West-Side of the city. That means that it is the nearest part of the entire West-Side that stretches straight west of downtown—known as The Loop (which rests near Lake Michigan). The Loop is where the two zero points of the city's geography interesect which run North–South and East–West at State and Madison streets, respectively. 

Notes[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Fool Moon, ch. 5
  2. 2.0 2.1 Small Favor, ch. 46
  3. Grave Peril, ch. 01-02 & 06
  4. Grave Peril, ch. 22
  5. Grave Peril, ch. 39
  6. Dead Beat, ch. 18 & 19

External links[]

Stroger Hospital-front view

Another "Castle" view from the front of Stroger Hospital

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