Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Famous Hospitals

  • Gilyarovsky and Gannushkin psychiatric hospitals in Moscow

    Sergei Jargin Moscow, Russia   Fig. 1. Gilyarovsky psychiatric hospital in Moscow, founded 1808. The Gilyarovsky and Gannushkin psychiatric hospitals can be discussed together because the latter was founded in 1913 as a branch of the former, becoming a separate institution only in 1931. Both hospitals are located not far from each other, near the…

  • 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…

  • Trafford General Hospital: a conjuring of spatial significance

    Sang Ik Song Limerick, Ireland    “Health Secretary Bevin with ‘First NHS Patient’ Sylvia Diggory in Trafford’s Park Hospital” On July 5, 1948, the then health secretary Aneurin Bevan officially launched the British National Health Service (NHS) at Trafford’s Park Hospital.1 The picture of Nye Bevan, suited and clean cut by the bedside of Sylvia…

  • Royal Victoria Military Hospital Netley

    Samuel Parish Naples, Florida, United States    Royal Victoria Military Hospital Netley Hospitals are built to respond to the health needs of a community. In the military, the state of healthcare is often not realized until a crisis stretches the limits of the health system. The crisis most often is war. Such was the case…

  • The Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary

    Samantha WilliamsonChicago, Illinois, United States The direct ophthalmoscope debuted in Germany in 1851, ushering in the modern era of ophthalmology. Seven years later, the introduction of the laryngoscope allowed direct visualization of the airway. In 1858, on the heel of these discoveries, Edward Holmes, a Massachusetts native who had trained in Vienna and Berlin, opened…

  • The Holy Infirmary of the Knights of St. John in Malta

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States On a small island near Sicily, where today one hears the rich Maltese language—a mixed tongue of Italian, Arabic, English, and even French—a hospital was established in 1574 by the Knights of St. John. These aristocratic, militaristic, and religious men were also known as the Hospitalers, in part for their…

  • The Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation

    Rubina Naqvi     The Sindh Institute as photographed by Zubeida Mustafa This is a true story about a tertiary care hospital located in a country of 230 million people, which has no well-designed health facility program, especially for poor people with chronic ailments. Every year in this unfortunate country some 260 women per 100,000 live births die in…

  • Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, 600 years of history

    Rosa Monteserín Nadal Eap Sardenya, Barcelona, Spain    Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau The Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona is the oldest hospital in Spain. It was founded in 1401, after a pest plague and famine caused six medieval hospitals in Barcelona to merge and form the…

  • St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London

    Rebecca Green Mas Ahmed United Kingdom   St. Batholomew’s Hospital courtyard with the Fountain as it stands today Source: photograph taken by Farah Aga, used with kind permission. There is something about St Bartholomew’s Hospital, something – it may be in its age, its history or its associations – which creates towards it and, in…

  • Provident Hospital – the first Black owned and operated medical institution in the United States

    Raymond H. CurryVeeLa Sengstacke GonzalesChicago, Illinois, United States Prior to 1891 there was not in this country a single hospital or training school for nurses owned and managed by colored people . . . there are now twelve! . . . and not a single failure in the effort!– Daniel Hale Williams, 19001 Emma Reynolds, a…