Not before the 20th century did Sušak get a hospital proper. However, there is a history of inpatient clinics (also known as cottage hospitals) on the left bank of the Rječina (that is, at the location of today’s Sušak) ever since the 16th century when the friars of the Trsat monastery established the first hospice (in fact a primitive form of a hospital). The sec-ond hospice was established in the 18th century by Paulist Fathers in a building dubbed Kortil (“A Courtyard”) in a new small settlement known as Sussach, but these did not develop into “civilian” hospitals. Later in the 19th century, Sušak saw the outbreak of an endemic and non-veneral form of syphilis (locally known as “morbus Škrljevo” or “Škrljevo Disease”, after a village near Rijeka) and a number of cholera epidemics that called for temporary infirmaries, but none developed into a regular hospital. It took as long as 1924 for the first small General Hospital “proper” to see the light of day, after great financial and political difficulties. As it could not meet local healthcare demands, a new, big regional hospital was established only ten years later, in 1934. It was an example of the state of the art at the time, aesthetically and functionally. This review gives a detailed description of the features that make this hospital a landmark in modern health care architecture and practice.