THE EARLIEST HOSPITALS.
It was scarcely before the beginning of the eighteenth century that the hospitals of London began to be of any importance in the teaching of medicine. The earliest hospitals in London were leper hospitals, for at one time leprosy abounded in this city. St. James’s Palace is built on the site of a hospital for “maidens that were leprous;” the name Spitalfields reminds us that at one time there was a “spittle” here for lepers. There were other hospitals of a similar kind in Southwark and Kingsland. The next hospitals were mostly institutions founded by the religious houses, and were very much of the nature of almshouses, where the wretched, unfortunate, and diseased were received for a time. The two most important of these were St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and St. Thomas’s Hospital, and a few words as to their origin will not, I think, be uninteresting.
As regards St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Mr. Morrant Baker has written a most interesting monograph, entitled “The Two Foundations,” to which I am indebted for much that I have to say under this head. This hospital owes its origin to Rahere, who is said to have been a minstrel jester at the court of Henry I. Concerning this pious founder, an aged chronicler (one of the monks of the Priory of St. Bartholomew) tells us: “Man born and sprung of low kynage, and when he attained the flower of youth he began to haunt the households of noblemen and the palaces of princes; where under every elbow of them, he spread their cushions with japes and flatterings, delectably anointing their eyes, by this manner to draw to him their friendships. And still he was not content with this, but often haunted the king’s palace (Henry I.), and, among the noiseful press of that tumultuous court, informed himself with polity and cardinal suavity, by that which he might draw to him the hearts of many a one.” It does not seem at all likely that Rahere ever wore a cap and bells as a professional jester; but that he was rather a persona grata about the court, alike for his merry tongue and his handsome presence, concerning which his effigy in the church of St. Bartholomew the Great speaks clearly enough. Dr. Norman Moore, by reference to an early manuscript, has clearly shown that Rahere was no professional jester. He was early in life a Canon of St. Paul’s, and Dr. Moore thinks that he was possibly famous for his wit, just as Sydney Smith was famous. His fashionable and giddy life seems to have told upon Rahere, and he ultimately turned serious, made a pilgrimage to Rome, fell ill there, saw visions, notably one of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, who commanded him to go home and build a church and asylum for the sick and weary in Smithfield. Rahere’s persuasive powers were effectual in obtaining a site in the King’s Market, Smithfield, and the foundation of the church and hospital took place in 1123. As to Smithfield, the monk’s manuscript continues: “Right unclean it was; and, as a marsh, dungy, and fenny, with water almost every time abounding and that that was eminent above the water, dry, was deputed and ordained to the jubeit or gallows of thieves, and to the torment of other that were condemned by judicial authority.” Rahere seems to have brought his histrionic talents to bear on his good work, for the chronicler records that by feigning idiocy he attracted the reverence of the superstitious, and “drew to him the fellowship of children and servants, assembling himself as one of them; and with their use and help, stones and other things profitable to the building lightly he gathered together.” It is needless to say that many miracles were performed in the early days of the Priory and Hospital of St. Bartholomew. It was distinctly a monastic institution, and more resembled, as Mr. Baker suggests, the sick and lying-in ward of a modern workhouse than a hospital as we understand the term. Mr. Baker further suggests that the jousts and tournaments of Smithfield, as well as the horse and cattle fair which had been held there from time immemorial, may have provided the monks with not a few surgical casualties.
For the following facts concerning St. Thomas’s Hospital I am indebted to a paper by Mr. Rendle, read in 1882 before the Royal Society of Literature:—
Those who have travelled from London Bridge to Cannon Street by the railway, must have noticed the fine Church of St. Saviour’s, Southwark. This church marks the site of the ancient Priory of St. Mary Overy, which was the original home of St. Thomas’s Hospital. Southwark, in ancient times, was largely occupied by the clergy. Not far from the Priory of St. Mary was the Abbey of Bermondsey, and the palatial residences of the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester. In 1207 the Priory of St. Mary was burnt down, and with it the Hospital of St. Mary. At Winchester House was living at that time Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester. This prelate decided to rebuild the hospital in a better form and on a better site, and accordingly set to work to obtain funds by means of the usual Charter of Indulgences addressed to the faithful in 1228. “Behold,” says Bishop Peter, “at Southwark an ancient hospital, built of old to entertain the poor, has been entirely reduced to cinders and ashes by a lamentable fire; moreover, the place wherein the old hospital has been founded was less suitable, less appropriate for entertainment and habitation, both by reason of the straitness of the place and by reason of the lack of water and many other conveniences; according to the advice of us, and of wise men, it is transferred and transplanted to another more commodious site, where the air is more pure and calm, and the supply of water more plentiful. But whereas the building of the new hospital calls for many and manifold outlays, and cannot be crowned with its due consummation without the aid of the faithful, we request, advise, and earnestly exhort you all, and with a view to the remission of your sins enjoin you according to your abilities, from the goods bestowed on you by God, to stretch forth the hand of pity to the building of this new hospital, and out of your feelings of charity to receive the messengers of the same hospital coming to you for the needs of the poor to be therein entertained, that for these and other works of piety you shall do you may after the course of this life reap the reward of eternal felicity from him who is the recompenser of all good deeds and the loving and compassionate God. Now we, by the mercy of God, and trusting in the merits of the glorious Virgin Mary and the apostles Peter and Paul, and St. Thomas the Martyr and St. Swithin, to all the believers in Christ who shall look with the eye of piety on the gifts of their alms—that is to say, having confessed, contrite in heart and truly penitent—we remit to such twenty days of the penance enjoined on them, and grant it to them to share in the prayers and benefactions made in the church of Winchester and other churches erected by the grace of the Lord in the diocese of Winchester. Ever in the Lord. Farewell.” The Prior of St. Mary Overy assisted in the good work, and several popes confirmed the acts of their subordinates, and thus St. Thomas’s Hospital was founded on the site now occupied by part of the London Bridge Railway Station—a site which was its home from 1228 to 1862. In 1535 there were forty beds at St. Thomas’s Hospital. In 1507 the hospital was enlarged and repaired, “the void ground,” called the “Faucon,” and afterwards the “Tenys Place” and “Closshbane” (probably connected with the game of skittles), was acquired, and the following was the bill: “Paid to Mr. Scott of Kent, and Ann, his wife, for the land forty marks, and for a gown cloth of damask for the said Ann £3 16s. 8d.—in all £31 13s. 4d.” When this land, or very nearly the same, was sold to the South-Eastern Railway Company in 1862 it fetched £296,000. The total cost of land and buildings erected in 1507, with the legal expenses, was £311 6s. 1½d. About the year 1527, James Nycolson, of “St. Thomas’s Spyttell in Southwark,” had a printing press within the precincts of the hospital, and among other notable books produced the Bible known as “Nycolson’s Coverdale.”