The Garrison hospital 3rd class at Gombong mentioned by D. Schoute in his publication: “De Geneeskundige Dienst in Nederlandsch Indie in de 19e eeuw”, GTNI 75 (1935) 10, 826. The infirmary was part of the Military Medical Service (MGD), which in 1867 (the year of the survey of all military facilities) managed a total of 79 facilities (3 large military hospitals, 35 garrison hospitals and 41 infirmaries) with on average 4,244 occupied beds. In that same year the Garrison hospital at Gombong had an average occupancy of 43 beds. Some 25 years later the Koloniaal Verslag published with Addendum D, the figures for the year 1890. The garrison hospital at Gombong admitted in that year 821 patients (818 Europeans and 3 indigenous patients) and had at the end of the year 18 Europeans and 26 indigenous patients. The Koloniaal Verslag 1917 mentions the extension of the hospital with a department for female patients. The Koloniaal Verslag 1921 reports about improvement of buildings and the provision of a department for contagious diseases.

The directing Health Officer 2nd class, W. van der Veer reports about the MGD in the period 1911-1934 and mentions the transformation of a number of military hospitals into ziekenzalen (Infirmaries), among others this happens to the garrison hospital at Gombong in 1932. See: Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indie (GTNI) 76 (1936), 202-234.

Gombong (Province of Mid-Java, Residency Banyumas, Regency Karanganjar) as such held no position of any importance in Java’s pre-war administrative system, but it was the location of one of several great forts that were built along the Principalities ‘borders after the Java War (1825 -1830). Fort Generaal Cochius was begun in 1835 and named after the commander-in-chief of the Netherlands East Indies Army at the time, General F.D. Cochius (1787-1876), but was never completed. Between 1856 and 1912 the Fort served as the so-called Pupillenschool, a military preparatory school for ssons of Europeans in the East Indies (Grote Atlas van Nederlands Oost-Indie, 278).