Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: 18th Century

  • Colonial madness: The Public Hospital of Williamsburg, Virginia

    Brian Andrew SharplessPullman, United States Although it is widely known that the first hospital in the United States was the Pennsylvania Hospital (founded in 1751 in Philadelphia), few may realize that the first American hospital devoted exclusively to treating the mentally ill was built in Virginia. The Public Hospital of Williamsburg (also known as Eastern…

  • Dominique-Jean Larrey, Napoleon’s army surgeon (1766–1842)

    I can hardly believe my own memory when I recall the old practitioners and professors who were still going round the hospitals when I mingled with the train of students that attended the morning visits…. The short, square, substantial man with iron-gray hair, ruddy face, and white apron is Baron Larrey, Napoleon’s favorite surgeon, the…