Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Famous Hospitals

  • The monastic infirmaries of North Yorkshire

    Stephen MartinUK North Yorkshire had many wealthy monasteries with infirmaries to care for sick monks or lay brothers.1 They were founded in the twelfth century with agricultural self-funding, and were finally dissolved by King Henry VIII. Their remains pose as many questions as they answer. The designation of abbey, priory, or friary depended on the…

  • The medieval hospitals of County Durham

    Stephen Martin County Durham, UK   Fig 1. Durham Cathedral, gate of Benedictine Priory, exterior, built by Prior Castell, 1494-1519. Photo © author, 2021, permission for academic & non-commercial reuse. County Durham in the northeast of England is rich in the atmospheric remains and documented history of medieval hospitals, all connected with the church. Looking…

  • Hospitals in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516)

    “But they take more care of their sick than of any others; these are lodged and provided for in public hospitals. They have belonging to every town four hospitals, that . . . are so large that they may pass for little towns; by this means, if they had ever such a number of sick…

  • The Sorokdo National Hospital of South Korea

    Lucy Eum New Brunswick, Canada   The wooden operating table used for vasectomies and sterilizations. Photo by Lucy Eum. 2012. Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, has historically been a highly stigmatized condition.1 For centuries it was thought to be a curse, a punishment for sin, or a hereditary disease.2 It was not until 1873…

  • The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the legacy of Long John Silver

    George Venters Scotland   The “Old Surgical Hospital” as it is today. Courtesy of Dr. Iain MacIntyre. Faced with the danger of having his right foot amputated in 1873, the real “Long John Silver,” the English poet William E. Henley, turned for help to Joseph Lister and became a patient in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.…

  • The Metropolitan Hospital of London

    Metropolitan Free Hospital. Photo by Ethan Doyle White. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0 Metropolitan Hospital, Kingsland Road. Photo by Dr Neil Clifton. Via Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 2.0.   The Metropolitan Hospital was founded in 1836 to provide medical care to the indigent of London’s East End, with two physicians and three surgeons offering their services…

  • The Imperial Asylum at Vincennes

    On March 8, 1855, Napoleon III of France announced the creation of the Imperial Asylum at Vincennes. It opened in 1857 and was intended to be a place where workers could receive care comparable to military veterans—particularly significant as construction and factory jobs had become more important and more dangerous. The Emperor subsidized the early…

  • Children at play in the East London Hospital for Children

    The first hospital for children in London was established with ten beds in 1866 during a terrible cholera epidemic. It relied entirely on charity, was enlarged in 1875 and subsequently expanded, merged, and incorporated into larger facilities until it was closed after the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948. At the time it…

  • Sydney clinic

    In the Australian state of New South Wales, a system of medical inspection of schoolchildren was organized in 1913 and arrangements were made to examine each child at least twice during their periods of school attendance, which was compulsory between the ages of seven and fourteen years. The inspections were conducted by a staff of…

  • Maria Lorenza Longo and the birth of the “Incurabili” Hospital in Naples

    Marco LuchettiMilano, Italy In the Middle Ages hospitals were charitable institutions that took care of those that could not afford a doctor at home, such as the poor, elderly, orphans, and single mothers. In Naples there was an urgent need for a large facility with many doctors where “incurable” people could be treated for free.…