The J. B. Cooke Collection consists of 29 Roosevelt Hospital Ambulance Department tickets signed by Cooke, the ambulance surgeon, one Roosevelt Hospital Visit Slip, one blank pre-printed card to take case notes for patients, and one scrapbook piece containing four newspaper clippings about J. B. Cooke and the Utica Medical Club. The ambulance tickets record where the ambulance call originated, the location of the emergency, the time, and patient information, including name, age, nativity, marital status, occupation, residence, and diagnosis. Cooke filled out these sections, along with sections for patient history and calculations for the duration of the ambulance trip.
The nativity of patients includes American, German, and Irish, with one patient identified as African American. Accidental injuries predominate, such as those sustained by falling off a streetcar, being kicked by a horse, falling on a spike, or being run over by car wheels. Other conditions were caused by violent encounters, such as being clubbed by police officers or stabbed, while others were medical in nature, including a uterine prolapse, abdominal pain, and an epileptic fit. Some cases indicate when inebriation was a factor, and several suggest workplace hazards, such as when a butcher experienced traumatic amputation of his fingers, a carpenter fell off a scaffold, or a domestic worker fell out a window while hanging laundry.
