Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Hospitals of Note

  • The medieval hospitals of County Durham

    Stephen MartinCounty Durham, UK County Durham in the northeast of England is rich in the atmospheric remains and documented history of medieval hospitals, all connected with the church. Looking at the whole group has some interesting new lessons. Durham Cathedral Durham City’s Benedictine Priory, later the Cathedral, ran two infirmaries.1 One, for “lay folk,”2 with…

  • Hospitals in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516)

    “But they take more care of their sick than of any others; these are lodged and provided for in public hospitals. They have belonging to every town four hospitals, that . . . are so large that they may pass for little towns; by this means, if they had ever such a number of sick…

  • The Sorokdo National Hospital of South Korea

    Lucy EumNew Brunswick, Canada Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, has historically been a highly stigmatized condition.1 For centuries it was thought to be a curse, a punishment for sin, or a hereditary disease.2 It was not until 1873 that a Norwegian scientist, Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen, discovered the bacterial cause: Mycobacterium leprae.3 While Hansen’s…

  • The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the legacy of Long John Silver

    George VentersScotland Faced with the danger of having his right foot amputated in 1873, the real “Long John Silver,” the English poet William E. Henley, turned for help to Joseph Lister and became a patient in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. While there he was introduced to the Scots writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Born within a…

  • The Metropolitan Hospital of London

    The Metropolitan Hospital was founded in 1836 to provide medical care to the indigent of London’s East End, with two physicians and three surgeons offering their services free of charge. In 1885 the hospital was moved to Kingsland Road. In 1896 two six-bed wards on the ground floor were reserved for Jewish patients, a Jewish…

  • The Imperial Asylum at Vincennes

    On March 8, 1855, Napoleon III of France announced the creation of the Imperial Asylum at Vincennes. It opened in 1857 and was intended to be a place where workers could receive care comparable to military veterans—particularly significant as construction and factory jobs had become more important and more dangerous. The Emperor subsidized the early…

  • Gorgas Hospital, Ancon, Panama

    W. Paul McKinneyLouisville, Kentucky, United States  A man, a plan, a canal: Panama. This well-known palindrome describes the grand vision of Count Ferdinand de Lesseps for constructing, under the flag of France, a sea level canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in the late nineteenth century. Despite the best efforts of the French, the…

  • The Old Cook County Hospital of Chicago

    George Dunea This venerable hospital still exists, but in some ways it exists no more, because in 2002 it was renamed, rebuilt, and drastically reduced in size. But some half a century ago it was one the largest hospitals in the world. It had a bed capacity of 4,500, almost 100,000 admissions each year, and…

  • Boston Dispensary

    Birju RaoChicago, Illinois, United States  Sometimes, what seems like a miracle is actually a product of history. I It was the dead of night on a chilly April 18, 1775, in the large town of Arlington, MA. A muffled shout and a distant sound of hooves startled the sleepy village watchmen. The beating hooves drew…

  • The Massachusetts General Hospital

    Andy HungChicago, Illinois, United States The performance was about to begin. The great glass dome lit up the open center stage with bright skylight. It was October 16, 1846, a time in history when surgeons performed their art before spectators, and the audience was about to witness a historic performance. William Morton, a 25-year-old dentist,…