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A Great Hospital |
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Title: A Great Hospital Author: Francis Darwin [More Titles by Darwin] {137a}
The book seems to me eminently worthy of its subject and of its learned author. {137b} As a record of the 800 years during which the Hospital has existed it naturally contains an enormous mass of detail, and this means that the book is physically very big. The first volume is of 614 quarto pages, and the second of 992 pages. The index contains at least 20,000 entries. The Hospital and the Priory of St Bartholomew were the first buildings erected on the open space of Smithfield. The foundation took place in 1123, and Rahere, the founder, was the first Prior. He is said to have been of lowly race, and to have made himself popular in the houses of nobles and princes "by witcisms and flattering talk." Then he repented of such a mode of life and made a pilgrimage to Rome to obtain forgiveness. On his way back he had a vision of St Bartholomew, by whom he was directed to found a church in Smithfield. It seems that "no part of the hospital as built by Rahere is now standing, but within the present building, which covers the original site, there still remains one thing which was there in his time. It is a legal document which his eyes beheld, and which was sealed in his presence. This charter is written on vellum in the clear hand-writing of the first half of the twelfth century." The seal shows a "turreted building, which is probably the Priory of St Bartholomew’s as it looked in the first twenty years of its existence." The two parts of an indented chirograph have been preserved in the hospital, which give (i., p. 239) a view of the state of agriculture in Essex in the reign of King John. Mention is made of fields of wheat, rye, barley, oats and beans; of oxen, horses, of brew-house and barn. Rent was paid in kind and sent by water to the hospital quay, which may have been on the River Fleet and therefore nearer to the hospital than a landing-place on the Thames. The Fleet river, as Dr Moore happily points out (i., p. 246), is now shut up in a tubular dungeon, "as if to remind it of all the unhappiness it had passed by in the Gaola de Flete from the time" when the prisoners watched "the ships passing up it with corn for St Bartholomew’s Hospital . . . to the days when the body of Samuel Pickwick was confided to the custody of the tipstaff, to be by him taken to the Warden of the Fleet Prison, and there detained until the amount of the damages and costs in the action of Bardell against Pickwick was fully paid and satisfied." The author never fails to make interesting use of the driest of charters. Thus in the reign of King John a person with the pleasant name of Adam Pepercorn grants to the hospital ten shillings quit-rent for some land in Grub Street, a region full of unhappy memories. Dr Moore quotes passages from Johnson, Swift, and Goldsmith to show that the name Grub Street should have been protected by such associations from any change; but nothing is sacred, and Grub Street is now known as Milton Street. The author (i., p. 279) asks whether the brethren of St Bartholomew’s made any medical studies, and points out they may well have read parts of the Liber Etymologiarum by St Isidore of Seville, who flourished A.D. 601. The book is a general summary of knowledge in Isidore’s day, and few religious houses in England were without a copy. I like the facts in the region of domestic economy which are given. For instance, that in 1229 Richard of Muntfichet was ordered by Henry III. to give "six leafless oaks for the hospital fire." We want to know whether they were the King’s oaks, or was Muntfichet forced to supply the wood? If Dr R. W. Darwin (father of Charles Darwin) had then been King of England he would have ordered apple-trees, for these he considered much superior to all other fuel. The reader is constantly meeting interesting stories. Thus Bishop Roger Niger was, in the year 1230, celebrating mass in St Paul’s when a great thunderstorm burst over the church and the congregation fled in terror. But Roger and one deacon were not to be frightened, and went on with the Mass. In the 13th Century John of Marsham (i., p. 390) made oath that he would carry through the affairs of Alan of Culing at the Court of Rome. Did John die on his journey, or did he fail in his suit? He never claimed the charter which he left at the hospital, where it may still be seen. A charter recording a grant by the Master of St Bartholomew’s to the Bishop of Bath is preserved in St Paul’s; Sir Norman Moore says (i., p. 392), "It was pleasant to find this original document in the charter room of the cathedral, where mine was probably the first hand from St Bartholomew’s Hospital which had touched it since it received the seal of William the master and the brethren, six hundred and seventy years ago." I cannot resist quoting (i., p. 412) one more of the many touching and interesting episodes with which the history of St Bartholomew’s abounds:— Cecilia, a widow, devoted herself to the altar of St Edmund and received a wedding ring. When she was dying (1251), a Dominican father, giving her the last sacrament, noticed the ring and said, "Take off that ring, lest she die so decked out." Cecilia roused herself and said she would offer the ring "before the judgement seat of God my betrothed." It is interesting to find that surnames were beginning to be established in the reign of Henry III. Thus a certain Thomas Niger is described as the son of Walter Niger. {141} There are innumerable facts given in the history of St Bartholomew which illustrate the permanence of the London streets. Thus in a document of 1256 is mentioned a little lane going towards the church of St Mary Staining Lane. The little lane is easily found at this day leading from Wood Street to a small churchyard, on a stone in the wall of which is cut "Before the dreadful fire of 1666, here stood the church of St Mary Staining" (i., p. 441). A document quoted (i., p. 454) is of interest in regard to the value of money in mediæval times; the following extract shows what in the reign of Henry II. was considered a serious sum. The hospital owed the butcher eleven pounds, and the master and brethren agreed to pay it in eight years and a quarter by a rent charge on a house. The reader of Sir Norman Moore’s book is continually coming across unexpected facts. For instance, that St James’ Palace is on the site of what, in the reign of Henry III., was known as the Hospital of St James. On 15th June 1253, St Bartholomew’s Hospital obtained from Henry III. two important charters, one confirming them in their possessions, the other in their rights and privileges. The gift was made, among other reasons, for the soul "of King Henry my grandfather." The author succeeds in conveying to his readers the personal interest which he evidently feels in the writers of the deeds of which he makes such good use. Thus (i., p. 477) he quotes Maelbrigte, who made a copy of the later Gospels at Armagh in the time of Rahere, as writing "at the foot of a very small page of vellum in a minute and exquisite hand, ‘If it was my wish I could write the whole treatise like this,’ thus handing down to succeeding ages a scribe’s pride in his art." Again in a charter copied into the hospital cartulary the last witness is "Master Simon, who wrote this charter." The author (i., p. 485) has occasion to refer to a grant by Stephen of Gosewelle of certain lands. And this reminds him how he heard Dickens read the trial in Pickwick. He says, in "almost every part I can recall his emphasis and the tone of his voice.—‘Mrs Bardell shrunk from the world and courted the retirement and tranquillity of Goswell Street.’ . . . Very few know that this thoroughfare was the street of a hamlet, extra barram de Aldredesgate." In a charter probably belonging to the earlier half of the reign of Henry III., a witness, Sabrichet, "has a name which survives in Sabrichetestead or Sabstead, the native pronunciation of Sawbridgeworth." In the out-patient room a patient said that he came from Sawbridgeworth. The physician, {142} who had been instructed by Henry Bradshaw, remarked that the patient did not know how to pronounce the name of his own home. On this the patient exclaimed, "Oh, I know it is Sabstead, but I thought the gentleman would not understand." Names have a fascination for me, and I cannot resist quoting the name of Henry Pikebone, who, I hope, pronounced it Pickbone, and might well have been one of Falstaff’s men. We meet (p. 510) with a reference to John of Yvingho, which is said to have suggested Ivanhoe to Walter Scott. I regret to say that John was a fishmonger. Elsewhere we meet another pleasing name, Cecilia Pidekin, but unfortunately she is not known in any other way than as the recipient, by a will of 1281, of a chemise and a little brass pail. There are innumerable points of interest in the matter of names. Thus the author points out that Shoe Lane has nothing to do with shoes nor indeed with lanes; it is a corruption of the solanda or prebend through which it passes. The author often helps us to realise the appearance of the inhabitants of St Bartholomew’s. Thus (p. 551) the Bishop of London in his ordinance of 1316 settled that "those of the brethren who were priests were to wear round cloaks of frieze or other cloth, the lay brethren shorter cloaks; the sisters tunics and over-tunics of grey cloth, these not to be longer than to their ankles." This last regulation is curious. We should have expected the limitation to have been applied to shortness rather than to length. Walter of Basingbourne {144} was Master of the Hospital during the greatest epidemic of plague which "the Western world had experienced since the time of Justinian." It is generally known as the Black Death, and was the same disease as that which terrified London in 1665, and the epidemic which has destroyed nearly nine millions of people in India since 1894. Speaking (i., p. 584) of the Charter House, Sir Norman says: "Our hospital . . . saw the noble foundation of Thomas Sutton built, and became familiar with its brethren in their black cloaks and with the gown boys." He quotes appositely enough Thackeray’s well-known words on the death of Colonel Newcome:— "And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said ‘Adsum,’ and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called, and lo he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of his Master." In 1381 Wat Tyler and his mob sacked and burnt the Temple and the Priory of Clerkenwell. A few days later the brethren could see from their walls the blow struck by Walworth the Mayor, the fall of Tyler from his horse, and the courageous behaviour of King Richard. Wat Tyler was carried into the hospital, but the Mayor went in and brought him out and had him beheaded. Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, was beheaded by the rebels. Sir Norman Moore once asked a patient whence she came, and she answered "from Sudbury in Suffolk." Dr Moore told his students the story of Simon’s death, and added that his head is said to be "preserved to this day at Sudbury." The woman raised herself in bed and said, "My father keeps it." Simon’s tomb at Canterbury has been opened, and was found to contain a headless body. During the mastership of William Wakering, who died in 1405, and that of Sutton, John Mirfeld flourished in the priory of St Bartholomew and wrote his Breviarium Bartholomei, which may "fairly be regarded as the first book on medicine connected with St Bartholomew’s Hospital." The brethren had no watches, and had to measure "the time for heating fluids or making decoctions by reciting certain psalms and prayers." I remember to have heard Sir Norman say how he demonstrated to his pupils the efficacy of the words which our ancestors prescribed for the cure of epilepsy. Their magic depended on the fact that they required some minutes to recite, and this allowed the patient to recover from his fit. I did not expect to find any evidence in regard to Falstaff, but the following passage (ii., p. 2) shows that he must have been damped (in two senses) on a memorable occasion {145}:—"In the year 1413, on the ninth day of the month of April, which day was Passion Sunday, and a very rainy day, the coronation of Henry V. took place at Westminster, at which coronation I, Brother John Cok, who have recorded that royal coronation for the refreshing of memory, was present and beheld it." Sir Norman says (ii., p. 40):—"I was present at the coronation of King George V., and watched the splendid assemblage gradually filling Westminster Abbey, . . . and heard the shouts of ‘God save King George!’ . . . and saw the King in his crown, with the orb in his left hand and the sceptre in his right, walk in solemn procession down the nave. . . . It was a solemn as well as a splendid sight. More than once during the day I thought of John Cok, the brother of St Bartholomew’s beholding five centuries ago within the same walls and under the same noble vault, the coronation of the future victor of Agincourt. . . ." John Cok is a valuable witness as regards the history of the hospital, especially as to the mastership of John Wakeryng, who held office for forty years. Cok became Rentar of the Hospital, and the chief work of his life was the writing of the Cartulary (which he called a Rental), recording rents due to the hospital, deeds of gift, papal bulls, and other documents. Cok’s book (dated 1456) is a large volume written in Latin on 636 leaves of vellum and enclosed in an ancient binding of oak boards covered with leather. In a transaction of 14th June 1423 is the first appearance of the arms at present used by the hospital (ii., p. 16), namely, party per pale argent and sable a chevron counter-changed. It was probably Wakeryng’s coat of arms, but ended by being regarded as that of the hospital. The author suggests that the chevron "might symbolise the hospital roof, while the equally divided and counter-changed argent and sable suggested that each patient admitted had an even chance of recovery or of death." In 1432 arrangements were made for a water-supply to the hospital from Islington (Iseldon); and the "waste of water at the Cisterne" was to be conveyed "to the Gailes of Newgate and Ludgate for the reliefe of the prisoners." Cock Lane, near the hospital, has, I fear, no connection with brother John Cok (ii., p. 53); it was so called from the shops of the cooks who prepared refreshments for the crowds who came to Smithfield. It was at the end of Cock Lane that the fire of London stopped in 1666, but it is better known as the scene of the Cock Lane ghost. Sir Richard Owen, who had been a student at St Bartholomew’s, told Dr Moore (ii., p. 54) a grim story of Cock Lane. It was there that the hospital authorities hired a house for the reception of the dead bodies of criminals hung at Newgate. "Owen was in a room on the first floor with Sir William Blizard, the President, who was attired in court dress as the proper costume for an official act. They heard the shouts of the crowd and then the noise of an approaching cart, which turned down Cock Lane and stopped at the door. Then came the heavy steps of the executioner tramping up the stairs. He had the body of a man who had been hanged on his back, and entering the room, let it fall on a table. . . . Sir William Blizard with a scalpel made a small cut over the breast-bone, and bowed to the executioner. This was, I suppose, the formal recognition of the purpose for which the body had been delivered. The rumbling of the cart, the contrast between the stiff figure of Sir William Blizard in his court dress and the executioner in coarse clothes, and the thud of each dead body on the table remained in Owen’s memory to the end of his days; and his skill in telling the story has made me remember it nearly every time that I have walked down Cock Lane." On 1st March 1711, a piece of literature destined "to be famous as long as English is read, was published near the end of Duck Lane in Little Britain." This was the first number of the Spectator, and "all London read it and enjoyed it, from the motto to the end." The author (ii., p. 63) imagines Mr Addison walking down Duck Lane the Wednesday evening before its appearance, from Mr Buckley’s in Little Britain where he had corrected his last revise. Sir Norman Moore adds: "For me . . . Duke Street, Little Britain, has innumerable memories of twenty-one happy years. I lived there as a student and as house physician, and then as Warden of the College of St Bartholomew’s." He adds that his election as Warden was his first professional success, which was followed by a place on the permanent staff of the hospital. It was the home of his early married life, and here his eldest child was born. He need not have apologised (as he does); such details will surely please all sympathetic readers. There is an interest in even the modern inhabitants of Little Britain. We hear of dealers in gold lace and gold leaf, and also a representative of that rare genus the teapot-handle maker. These handles could not be worked on a lathe, and had to be sawn out of the ivory. Dr Moore learned that in all London there was but one other teapot-handle maker: he felt what a favour it was when the great man mended a fan for Mrs Moore. It is pleasant to meet with the well-known lines from Wordsworth’s poem of "Poor Susan":—
In 1535 the hospital estate was valued at £305, 6s. 7d. according to one authority, and at £371, 13s. 2d. by another. St Bartholomew’s was then the third hospital in London in order of wealth. Henry VII.’s Hospital in the Savoy and the New Hospital of Our Lady outside Bishopsgate were richer (ii., p. 125). The Act of Dissolution was passed in 1536, and the property of the hospital was given into the King’s hands in 1537. Thus the "old order, which had existed for more than four hundred years, was at an end, and the hospital was in the eye of the law vacant and altogether destitute of a master, and of all fellows or brethren" (ii., p. 126). "Augustinians, Benedictines, Carthusians, Gilbertines, Franciscans, Dominicans, and more, all were banished from their ancient homes. . . . St Bartholomew’s Hospital was one of the few places where the injured tree of charity began to put forth new branches, and soon flourished again" (ii., p. 148). The King, after five years’ delay, granted, on 23rd June 1544, {150} letters patent reconstituting the hospital for its original uses. William Turges, the King’s Chaplain, was the first Master, and "the body corporate was to be called ‘The Master and Chaplains of the Hospital of St Bartholomew in West Smithfield, near London.’" The grant did little for the poor, but it prevented the destruction of St Bartholomew’s and carried on its existence. The figure of Henry VIII. is above the Smithfield Gate of the hospital. A full-length portrait of him hangs at the end of the Great Hall. He is also represented in a window of the hall handing the letters patent to the Lord Mayor and citizens. "Thus," says the author, "do we commemorate this destroying King, who might have taken away all the estate of St Bartholomew’s, but only took a small portion of it" (ii., p. 161). The constitution under which the hospital is ruled was established in 1547, and confirmed, with an alteration in but one important particular, in 1782. "Most of the offices created by the Deed of Covenant of December 1546, and the letters patent of January 1547, exist at the present day. The treasurer, the almoners, the physician, the surgeon, the rentar, the steward, the matron and sisters, the porter bearing a figure of St Bartholomew on his staff of office, and the beadles with silver badges engraved with the hospital arms, are all parts of the present life of the hospital" (ii., p. 191). Beside the grave benefactors of the hospital we hear of serio-comic personages who remind us of the curious lunatics recorded by de Morgan in his Budget of Paradoxes. Thus in 1774 Mr W. Gardiner offered £2000 to St Bartholomew’s "as a sacrifice for God’s having put it in his power to overturn Sir Isaac Newton’s system" (ii., p. 245). From 1547 the treasurer was "a very important officer, but the president also took an active part in the affairs of the hospital." But now the treasurer is the responsible head of the administration. In 1518 the College of Physicians was founded by Henry VIII. (ii., p. 408) on the advice of Dr Thomas Linacre. Its active existence began in his house in Knightrider Street. The most pious and the most learned men of England were Linacre’s intimate friends, and the "example of his life, as felt in the College of Physicians, continues a living force to this day" (ii., p. 411). Dr John Caius (ii., p. 412) was a devoted follower of Linacre; he was born 1510, went to Cambridge in 1529, and in 1533 was elected Fellow of Gonville Hall. In 1539 he went to Padua, where Vesalius, the founder of modern anatomy, was Professor. In 1547 Caius was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians, and not long after he came to live within St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Caius wrote on the sweating sickness in 1552, and his work was printed near St Bartholomew’s. "Thus were the proofs of the first medical monograph in the English tongue, and, indeed, the first book written by an English physician . . . on a particular disease, corrected in St Bartholomew’s" (ii., p. 418). Caius was in 1555 elected President of the College of Physicians, to which he presented their silver caduceus with four serpents at its head, a book of statutes, and a seal. In 1557–69 he was engaged in the refoundation and building at Cambridge of what was to be known as Gonville and Caius College. On his death his viscera were buried in St Bartholomew’s the Less, while the rest of his body was placed in an alabaster tomb in the chapel of his college with the inscription: "Fui Caius." We meet with many proofs of the consideration shown by the authorities towards the patients. For instance (ii., p. 279):— 13th March 1568.—"This day it is graunted by the courte that Griffen Davye shall departe forthwith into his countrye, and also that he shall have 20s. in his purse to bringe him home in consideracion that he is lame and impotent." Again (ii., p. 293), "30th April 1597.—Ordered that curtaynes be provided for certain beds of the poor." The author adds that "moveable curtains hang over the beds to this day, and are of great use in providing privacy when patients are washing and dressing." We meet with some trifling records of great events. Thus on 7th May 1660 it is ordered that "the shield of the States armes being the Redd Cross and Harpe be taken downe in the Court Hall and the King’s arms put in the Roome thereof." But even the King could not impose on the hospital. Thus in 1661 there was a vacancy for a surgeon at the Lock. The King wrote in favour of John Knight, but John Dorrington was elected (ii., p. 316). In 1666 the great fire of London was only prevented from reaching the hospital by pulling down houses. The consequent loss to the hospital may be set down as £2000 per annum. We are constantly meeting in the history of St Bartholomew’s interesting lights on the natural history of the patients. An entry as to the supply of beer (of which, by the way, the patients were allowed three pints daily) pleases me:—"Sir Jonathan Reymond, Knt. and Alderman, is to serve the matron’s cellar. Alderman Lt.-col. Freind is to supply small beer" (ii., p. 339). These personages doubtless belonged to the established church, for dissenters were not allowed to serve the hospital with any commodity. An entry under 26th February 1704 throws a sinister light on the condition of the wards:—"Elizabeth Bond did propose to kill and clear the beds and wards of bugs within this house for 6s. per bed." I hope Elizabeth Bond was more careful in her work than was the writer of the resolution (ii., p. 352). It is interesting to come across the following:— 21st July 1737.—It was resolved "that the thanks of this Court be given to William Hogarth, Esquire . . . for his generous and free gift of the painting of the great staircase. . . ." 5th Jan. 1758.—A committee considered the subject of visiting prisoners in Newgate, but the plan was apparently thrown over because prisoners were found entirely destitute of clothes, bedding, etc. Even in the history of Mr Pickwick (chapter xlii.) we read that "not a week passes over our heads, but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some . . . must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of want, if they were not relieved by their fellow prisoners." It is curious to find that in 1821 the function of the hospital as a school for students of medicine was something of a novelty. The reform seems to have been due to Abernethy. In 1845, on 13th May, a unanimous resolution against female governors was carried. Dr Moore adds that "about half a century later they were admitted, and no disastrous consequences have ensued." In 1851 Miss Elizabeth Blackwell was actually admitted as a student, and strange to say with satisfactory results. The author relates {154} how he was walking back to St Bartholomew’s one hot summer afternoon when he saw at a small second-hand book shop Paulus Jovius’ history of his own times, printed in 1550. Within it Woodhull the collector had noted that he bought it at the sale of Dr Askew’s books. Next day Sir Norman met Robert Browning and mentioned the book to him: "He had read it, and recalled passages in it, and told most pleasantly how the bishop had concealed the manuscript in a chest . . . when the Spaniards took Rome, and how a Spanish captain found out that Paulus Jovius valued the manuscript, and so only gave it up on receiving a promise of the emoluments of a living in the gift of the church" (ii., p. 539). Sir George Burrows became physician in 1841:—"He did not hesitate to express censure where he thought censure required. A clergyman at St Bartholomew’s rather aggressively invited his criticism on a sermon which he had just delivered. ‘Let me tell you, sir,’ said Burrows, ‘that many a man has been put in a lunatic asylum for much less nonsense than you preached to us to-day’" (ii., p. 561). Dr Frederic John Farre was elected physician, 1854. Farre was captain of Charterhouse School during Thackeray’s first year there. And in The Adventures of Philip the author tells how one of the boys laughed because Firmin’s eyes "filled with tears at some ribald remark, and was gruffly rebuked by Sampson major [i.e., Dr Farre], the cock of the whole school; and with the question, ‘Don’t you see the poor beggar’s in mourning, you great brute?’ was kicked about his business." Percivall Pott was elected assistant surgeon at St Bartholomew’s in 1745 and surgeon in 1749, holding office till 1787. There is in the hospital a fine portrait of him in a crimson coat, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. A very old lady, whose mother’s medical attendant had been dresser to Percivall Pott, told Dr Moore, on the authority of the above practitioner, that Pott often came to the hospital in a red coat, and sometimes wore a sword. Occasional teaching in medicine had been carried out from the seventeenth century onwards, but the originator par excellence was John Abernethy, who was born in 1764 and became a pupil at St Bartholomew’s in 1779. He taught anatomy in a really scientific manner, but he did not succeed in permanently raising it from the region of cram which in my day at Cambridge it shared with Materia Medica. Many stories are told of his abrupt manner with his private patients. Charles Darwin used to tell us of a patient entering Abernethy’s consulting room, holding out his hand and saying, "Bad cut," to which Abernethy replied, "Poultice"; the patient departed, only to return in a day or two, when his laconic report, "Cut worse," was answered by "More poultice." Finally he came back cured and enquired what he owed the surgeon, who replied, "Nothing; you are the best patient I ever had, and I could not take a fee." Sir James Paget was assistant surgeon at St Bartholomew’s in 1847; he became surgeon in 1861; he resigned the position in 1871, and died in 1899. He was the chief surgeon of the Victorian age, and his success may be estimated by the fact that his professional income rose to £10,000 per annum. He freely gave of his store of knowledge, for instance in Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions. William Morrant Baker was elected a surgeon of St Bartholomew’s in 1882. He was noted for the neatness of his dress, and Dr Francis Harris, who sometimes wore country clothes, told Dr Moore that he occasionally hid in the porter’s lodge to avoid Baker’s critical eyes. He warned Dr Moore (who was a candidate for the Wardenship of the College) that those same eyes were on him in the matter of dress. Sir William Church, who wrote on the Hospital Pharmacopœia, gives some astonishing facts. From 1866 to 1875 the annual consumption of sulphate of magnesia was 42½ hundredweights, i.e., about two cart-loads. "In 1836 8¾ tons of linseed meal were used, while from 1876 to 1885 the annual average was 15¾ tons, but in 1911 the poultice was so nearly obsolete that 3 cwt. sufficed. In 1837 96,300 leeches were used; . . . in 1868 the number had sunk to 2200. . . . It is now (1911) about 700" (ii., p. 714). Chloroform first appears in the apothecaries’ ledger on 22nd November 1847, just one week after the publication of Sir James Y. Simpson’s treatise. A pound of pure carbolic acid was used in 1865, in 1911 the quantity was 2½ tons. Nurses have increased from a "matron and eleven sisters in the reign of King Edward VI. to the matron, assistant-matron, thirty-eight sisters, and 268 nurses who form the highly trained nursing staff of the present day" (ii., p. 778). I cannot resist quoting a reminiscence of Mr Mark Morris, the Steward of the Hospital, who was born early enough to remember "several cases . . . of wives who had been sold in Smithfield. A rope was loosely thrown round them, and as the seller handed the end of the rope to the buyer, the buyer gave him a shilling. The new marriage was regarded . . . as in every way reputable and complete" (ii., p. 789). We have space for but a few of Dr Moore’s pleasant reminiscences. A woman came from South Wales whose only language was Welsh. Her husband’s native language was Irish, and he had learned Welsh, but could speak no English. A scavenger came into the Casualty Department named Michael O’Clery. "An illustrious name," said the physician (N. M.?) remembering a certain famous chronicler. The scavenger explained accurately to which part of the family of hereditary historians he belonged. "Another patient, a shoemaker . . . gave the name of Conellan. ‘Have you ever heard,’ said the physician, ‘of Owen Conellan, who wrote a grammar?’ ‘My relation,’ replied the patient, ‘historiographer to His Majesty King George IV.’ Thus was the physician instructed in the biography of the grammarian" (ii., p. 873). A mountebank, who gained his living by thrusting a sword, about a foot long, down his gullet was admitted to a surgical ward. The treatment consisted in putting probangs of india-rubber down the gullet, and in this the patient was more adroit than the highly skilled surgeon who attended him (ii., p. 874). I like, too, the case of a patient who was described as an "arrow-maker," and on being asked whether he did not call himself a fletcher, said, "Yes, but I thought you would not know." We read, also, of ruler-makers with "their hair turned green by the resin dust produced by their lathes." Also of "secret springers and piercers," who suggest murder and sudden death to the imperfectly informed. The following incident (ii., p. 883) is interesting from the point of view of history:—A negro, Jonathan Strong, had been brutally beaten by his master, and was admitted to the hospital in 1765. On leaving he got work at a chemist’s in the city; all seemed well, when he was recognised by an agent of his former master, and seized as "the property of Mr Kerr." Granville Sharp, who happened to be present, at once charged the agent with committing an assault. An action brought against Sharp lingered on for some time and was finally dropped. Strong remained free, but the general question of slavery in England was not settled till 1772. It is pleasant to know that in 1877 Dr Moore told the story of Jonathan Strong to William Lloyd Garrison.
{137a} The History of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, by Norman Moore, M.D., London. C. Arthur Pearson, Limited, 1918. {137b} Sir Norman Moore expresses his thanks to Mr Thomas Hayes, the present Clerk of the Hospital, for his courtesy on innumerable occasions during the progress of the author’s researches. {141} It is curious that, although the Christian names of men occurring in the history are quite ordinary, the women’s names are often unfamiliar, e.g., Godena, Sabelina, Hawisia, Lecia, Auina, Hersent, Wakerilda. {142} Doubtless Dr Moore himself. {144} William may have come from the village of Bassingbourne, near Cambridge. {145} See Henry IV., Part ii., Act v., Scene v. {150} In 1561 a new seal was made which is still in use. {154} Here and elsewhere I have fallen a victim to Dr Moore’s pleasant gift of narrative, for I cannot pretend that either Paulus Jovius or Robert Browning are connected with the hospital. [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |