Category: Famous Hospitals
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The unique journal of the USS Red Rover
Emily MooreAmes, Iowa, United States The USS Red Rover was commissioned on December 26, 1862, by the Union as the first US Navy hospital ship. It had been built in 1859 as a commercial use wooden side-wheel river steamer and purchased in 1861 by the Confederate States of America. In 1862 it was bombarded and captured…
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The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Elie MatarSydney, Australia When His Royal Highness Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and second son of Queen Victoria, landed on the shores of Sydney on January 21, 1868, he was received with thunderous ovation from the thousands gathered to witness the arrival of the first member of the Royal family to Australia. In light of…
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Hospital Municipal Sebastião Martins Alves, Lençóis, Bahia
Eleanor Stanford Hospital Municipal Sebastião Martins Alves is not a historically significant hospital. It is not well equipped, nor particularly clean (though it is not particularly dirty, either). It is not well staffed, nor is it on the cutting edge of any medical advances. (There are few cutting edges at all in Hospital Municipal Sebastião…
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The spedale of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence
Donatella LippiLuigi PadelettiFlorence, Italy The spedale of Santa Maria Nuova was founded in June 1288 by Folco di Ricovero dei Portinari, father of Dante’s Beatrice, who bought some houses in the centre of Florence to receive poor people who needed help. At first the hospital could only accept men from the large crowd of people…
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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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The Meath Hospital, Dublin
Desmond O’NeillDublin, Ireland Narratives of venerable teaching hospitals are usually upbeat and positive, delineating progress and advances made in the face of adversity and hardship. This is also the case for Meath Hospital, the most celebrated of the wave of voluntary hospitals founded in Dublin in the eighteenth century.1 Established in 1753 as a charitable…
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You’re no fi’ Glasgow: Memories of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary
Christopher FrankKingston, Canada We know famous hospitals for the care they provide, for eminent physicians who have worked in them, or for their architectural heritage. Hospitals are rarely famous for their patients. The Glasgow Royal Infirmary dates back to the eighteenth century and is best known as the place where Sir Joseph Lister studied antiseptics.…
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Missing history on a daily basis: Working in an old hospital without paying attention
Christopher FrankOntario, Canada I live in an old city by North American standards. I love walking through the Victorian parts of town, which have limestone buildings and hidden courtyards. However, I never gave much thought to the historical significance of the Kingston General (KGH), the hospital I go into or cycle past on a daily…
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Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Carolyn LipchikOhio, United States “The dean of the College of Medicine recalled Dr. Mitchell looking over blueprints and declaring, ‘We’ll have something here. There’ll be nothing like it in the world.’”1 Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) has a long history of commitment to medical research. Leadership in the 1920s modernized the hospital and infused…
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The Van Buren Hospital in the history of Chile
Carlos AstudilloValparaiso, Chile In the sixteenth century, Valparaiso was a small village with a few hundred inhabitants. Despite this, it was the principal port of the Kingdom of Chile, where ships from Europe arrived after the long and dangerous passage around Cape Horn. In this port ships took on food and water. The village had…