Tag: Spring 2016
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Sant’Anna Hospital in Ferrara
Sara Zanella Cona, Italy Sant’Anna church: first site of the hospital When the Marquis Nicolò III of Este and his son Leonello were ruling Ferrara at the beginning of the fifteenth century, about twenty different confraternities of monks and friars and lay associations, had the monopoly over the citizens’ health care. In hope of…
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King Edward VII Memorial Hospital
Paul S. Dhillon Saskatchewan, Canada King Edward VII Memorial Hospital was erected by public subscription and first opened after the Battle of the Falklands on December 8, 1914 on land that was a gift of George Bonner, ESQ. Some reports state the hospital was open in 1912 with the exception of its heating system,…
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The Heritage Craft Schools and Hospitals for Crippled Children
Lisa Pruitt Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States Grace Hannam Kimmins, 1870-1954, from Kimmins, p6* At the beginning of the twentieth century, following a decade of work among the London poor, Grace Hannam Kimmins (1870-1954) envisioned an idyllic rural retreat, a healing haven for children crippled by diseases associated with urban poverty. In 1903, she realized…
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Bellevue Hospital at the dawn of the apocalypse
Diya BanerjeeNew York, New York, United States It is tempting to think of the history of medicine as an orderly procession of notable firsts—the first transplants, medications, wards, cures—together making up a linear march towards progress and humankind’s continual betterment. Bellevue Hospital, in its very building and plot, subscribes to the same narrative of history.…
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Boston Dispensary
Birju RaoChicago, Illinois, United States Sometimes, what seems like a miracle is actually a product of history. I It was the dead of night on a chilly April 18, 1775, in the large town of Arlington, MA. A muffled shout and a distant sound of hooves startled the sleepy village watchmen. The beating hooves drew…
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The National Anti-Vivisection Hospital, London
Alan W.H. Bates London, United Kingdom The Anti-Vivisection Hospital in the 1930s. Photograph courtesy of Peter Maleczec. Source: Flickr In 1935, the National Anti-Vivisection Hospital was in trouble. Its nurses gave up their holidays to raise money, and residents of London’s deprived district of Battersea, which the hospital served, gave their savings, but it…
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Lajos Markusovszky: Semmelweis’s best friend
Constance Putnam Concord, Massachusetts, United States Bust of Lajos Markusovszky, in the inner garden of Semmelweis Medical University, Budapest. Photo by Attila Kovács, by kind permission. The name “Ignaz Semmelweis” is at least vaguely familiar to many people, even if they need reminding that he was “the hand-washing guy.” He was the first fully…
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Edward Jenner (1749-1823): from variolation to vaccination
Damiano Rondelli Chicago, Illinois, United States Figure 1. Portrait of Edward Jenner Smallpox virus is a linear double stranded DNA virus that belongs to the family of poxviridae. Because its surface is covered with filamentous proteins, it has the appearance of a wool knitting ball. Dr. Edward Jenner’s observations on immune protection from smallpox…
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Recollections of a polio ward
Janet Wolter Chicago, Illinois, United States My first impression when I walked into the huge ward was of the strange rhythm/non-rhythm, visual and auditory, of ten rocking beds moving at different rates and inclinations, sometimes in synchrony but more often not, and the punctuating steady whoosh-whoosh of two iron lungs. The people in and…
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A Physician-Scientist’s odyssey at the dawn of AIDS
Russell Tomar Chicago, Illinois & Madison, Wisconsin, United States I had just returned from a sabbatical leave at the National Institutes of Health in April 1981 to my position in Pathology, Medicine, and Microbiology at the State University of New York in Syracuse when each of two Infectious Disease specialists asked me to consult…