Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Famous Hospitals

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

    Rosa Monteserín NadalEap Sardenya, Barcelona, Spain 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 Hospital de la Santa Creu. This functioned until the 1930s,…

  • St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London

    Rebecca GreenMas AhmedUnited Kingdom 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 its strength, a unique feeling among its members. The words of the matron at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Isla Stewart, in the late ninteenth-century capture…

  • 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…

  • Massachusetts General Hospital, 1992

    Randall S. StaffordCalifornia, United States To be summoned to pronounce the end of a patient’s life is always unnerving and he was my first death during my Massachusetts General Hospital internship.  The task required a physician, no matter how inexperienced.  My patient, the eighty-one year-old Mr. H., was one of the privileged class of old…

  • The Royal London Hospital

    Peter HartChicago, Illinois, United States The Royal London Hospital, known as The London, is one of the largest and busiest hospitals in England and has an international reputation for excellence in many fields of medicine and dentistry. It was founded in 1740, at a time when London had become the largest city in Europe and…

  • King Edward VII Memorial Hospital

    Paul S. Dhillon Saskatchewan, Canada King Edward VII Memorial Hospital was erected by public subscription and first opened after the Battle of the Falklands on December 8, 1914 on land that was a gift of George Bonner, ESQ. Some reports state the hospital was open in 1912 with the exception of its heating system, which…

  • The historical hospital of Santa Chiara in Pisa

    Paola LenziGianfranco NatalePisa, Italy The historical Ospedale di Santa Chiara (Santa Chiara’s Hospital), located beside the beautiful Square of Miracles, traces its roots to A.D 325, when the Emperor Constantine issued a set of rules that imposed Christian charity, relief of the poor, and the construction of a hospital in each city. The emperor wanted…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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…