Albert Edelfelt, water-colour, 1898.
Congratulatory address (detail).

     The Deaconess' Institute - the first private hospital in Finland - was founded in 1867 on Aurora Karamzin's initiative. The founding of the hospital was a response to the great famine and the infectious diseases that had spread with it. The activities of the institute began in a leasehold property on Unioninkatu street, after which it functioned at various different addresses. The institute at first had an eight-bed hospital for infectious diseases,

where typhoid fever and smallpox in particular were treated. It was the first hospital in Finland with a trained staff. There was also a home for abandoned children connected to the institute, and for some time an old people's home as well.
     In January 1875, Aurora Karamzin purchased the house of the merchant Nikolai Wavulin in Katajanokka for the hospital. The house cost 125,000 Finnish marks. At that time, the activities of the Deaconess' institute were broadened and consolidated. In 1897, a new deaconess' institute was completed in Alppikatu street. It comprised a hospital, a church and a sisterhood home. The hospital had 76 beds, and the building was furnished with all the latest technological innovations, such as an elevator, electric lighting, plumbing and water closets.