Category: Famous Hospitals
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The Bonifacio Hospital: Reforming psychiatric hospital care
Panagiota KitsantasFairfax, Virginia, United States In 1369-1377 Bonifacio Lupi, mayor of Florence and Captain of the People, founded the Bonifacio Hospital (Ospedale di Bonifacio) dedicated to St. John the Baptist. In the sixteenth century, the hospital admitted patients suffering from syphilis, known as the “French disease,” spread by troops of Charles VII returning from Naples.…
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Workhouse to hospital
Orla McAlindenKildare, Ireland Carleton House, in Portadown, in the heart of Northern Ireland, was built as the townhouse dwelling of George Montagu, Viscount Mandeville, sixth Duke of Manchester. It is an imposing, three-story Georgian building on the Armagh Road, opposite a long stretch of terraced red-brick housing unimaginatively called Carleton Street. Montagu resided there when…
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Roosevelt Hospital
Noah DeLoneNew York, United States The stretch of land between West 58th and West 59th street in Manhattan, abutted by 9th avenue, is not just a hospital, but a philosophical and humanitarian inheritance set into motion by its founder, James Roosevelt. Much of the life of James Roosevelt has been lost to history; much can…
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A lesson in horizontality: El Hospital San Vicente de Paúl in Medellin, Colombia
Moisés EnghelbergNew York, United States This is not the story about another hospital, rebuilt from rubble after an earthquake. It is not even a story about perseverance, as much as it is about putting the pieces back together. It is also a story about peculiarity and geometry. The Hospital San Vicente de Paúl in Medellin,…
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Carville
Michelle LottHouston, Texas, United States The old Indian Camp plantation in southern Louisiana was going to be an ostrich farm—at least that’s what folks were told, so as not to cause alarm. No ostriches ever came. Instead, it would become a home to those ostracized by society because they had a disease that struck a…
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Zofiówka
Mary V. SeemanToronto, CanadaMałgorzata GrochowinaWarsaw, Poland In 1938, there were 14,000 psychiatric beds in Poland, distributed over thirty-one institutions. One of these institutions was Zofiówka, dedicated to the care of Jewish patients with nervous and mental illness.1 It was opened in 1908 thanks to a donation by Zofia Endelman, for whom the facility was named.2…
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The first ten hospitals on the American Continent
Marco Antonio Ayala-GarcíaMéxico Many hospitals came and went during the three centuries of the American colonies. By the end of the sixteenth century some 128 hospitals were operating throughout the Americas, largely in response to the frequent outbreaks of disease in the territories. The Spanish Crown needed to promote the good health of their subjects,…
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Baghdad Medical City
Lynn SadlerPittsboro, North Carolina, United States Can humans build and destroy simultaneously? Can they erect a gigantic, sprawling hospital complex as bombs drop, scud missiles home in, and anti-aircraft fire fills the air with flak? The Medical City of Central Baghdad perhaps cleanses some of our views of history. Few of us are aware that…
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The Montreal Neurological Hospital
Louise Fabiani Montreal, Canada The time was 1928 and the patient was a forty-three year old mother of six. After nearly thirty years of headaches and seizures, she had started to have problems with her right eye. A young neurosurgeon examined her and found evidence of a right frontal-lobe tumor, which had to be removed…
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The Heritage Craft Schools and Hospitals for Crippled Children
Lisa PruittMurfreesboro, Tennessee, United States 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 her vision by founding The Heritage Craft Schools and…