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54
Surgeons in London, and altered in the present reign (1844)
to the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Two centuries ago there were but two hospitals in London
for the reception of the sick; St. Bartholomew's, founded in
1122, and St. Thomas's, founded in 1213. These were both
well endowed; the first institution of the kind supported by
voluntary contributions was Westminster Hospital, which
was established in the year 1719. With the exception of
Bethlehem Hospital, which was originally a priory, but
converted into an asylum for lunatics at the dissolution of
the religious houses by Henry VIII., there does not appear
to have existed any institution for the special treatment of
any particular kind of disease. The management of Bethlehem,
brutal as it may appear to the present generation,
probably but too truly, reflected the general character of the
age. Hogarth's well-known picture no doubt is an exact
representation of what might be seen any day at Bethlehem
in his time, and a Parliamentary Committee reporting as
lately as 1814, describes one of the women's galleries as
follows:—
One of the side rooms contained about ten patients, each chained by one
arm or leg to the wall, the chain allowing them merely to stand up by the
bench or form fixed to the wall or to sit down again. The nakedness of
each patient was covered by a blanket gown only. The blanket gown is a
blanket formed something like a dressing gown, with nothing to fasten it in
front; this constitutes the whole covering. The feet even are naked.
The men's rooms are described as presenting the complete
appearance of a dog-kennel, from the nakedness of the unfortunate
patients and their mode of confinement. The house
surgeon was stated to be subject to frequent fits of insanity,
and still more frequent fits of intemperance. For many
years the revenues of the hospital were augmented by the
payment of one penny by each visitor, whether friends of
patients or strangers. Towards the middle of the last century,