Tag: Famous Hospitals
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The Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon
Judith WagnerMunich, Germany Welcome to the jungle It is a sultry day in equatorial Africa. The oppressive heat stifles all but the most necessary conversation between the few individuals perched on a wooden plank of the canoe floating along the vast lazy stream. On the banks of the Ogooué, lush vegetation drifts past. The monkeys’…
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The hospital on Profanity Hill
Josephine EnsignSeattle, United States When Harborview Hospital in Seattle opened its doors to patients in 1931, advertising posters portrayed the striking fifteen-story Art Deco building as a shining beacon of light, the great cream-colored hope on the hill overlooking the small provincial town clinging to the shores of Puget Sound. “Above the brightness of the…
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The Klinikum Aachen
Joerg AlbrechtChicago, Illinois, United States The Klinikum of the Rhenish-Westfalian Technical University in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) evokes reactions in everyone who sees it. As seen from the nearby rolling pastures of the Dutch border, its towers abruptly obstruct the countryside like a beached aircraft carrier. Even closer, viewed against an adjacent medium-size concrete city block, the…
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The General Infirmary at Leeds
JMS PearceHull, United Kingdom “The best hospitals in the world are not those which merely use new knowledge, but those which create it.”—Attributed to Sir George Pickering, 1960 Modern hospitals originated in fourth-century Byzantium. They succeed not because they housed the grandest, lavishly equipped buildings, but because of the excellence and dedication of their staff.…
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San Francisco General Hospital: treating AIDS on Ward 5B
Jared GriffinPennsauken, New Jersey, United States Walking down Potrero Hill’s 23rd Street past the San Francisco General Hospital today, one would never suspect the history that lies beyond its brick walls. Today, AIDS has faded to the background of the national discourse, even in San Francisco, the one American city perhaps most famous for its…
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The history of Bethlem Hospital
Janice TiaoPennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States Perhaps no hospital has made its mark on human imagination as much as Bethlem Hospital, located outside London. The first hospital in England to specialize in the care of the insane, Bethlem gave birth to the caricature of the lunatic asylum as a place filled with chained patients in filthy…
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The General Hospital—All are welcome
Jan KardaunAmsterdam, Netherlands Most people associate a hospital with medical care but would like to stay there as briefly as possible. In 1656, King Louis XIV of France created a General Hospital for all who needed care. It was spacious, elegantly designed, situated at the outskirts of the city of Paris, and free. But there…
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The first general hospital of Baghdad
Hussain Al-SardarEngland, United Kingdom In 1872, Midhat Pasha, the governor of Baghdad, noticed the high prevalence of disease among the city’s population as well as the abuse of patients by conjurers, quibblers, and equivocators. He built the first hospital in the city on the Al Kargh side of the river Tigris, which divides the capital…
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Pennsylvania Hospital
Hannah JoynerTakoma Park, Maryland, United States The Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia opened its doors more than two decades before the American colonies separated from Britain. Originally designed to care for all patients regardless of their circumstances, the hospital admitted those who could pay and those who could not. From the first days of the institution,…