It is needless to say that Easter holiday-makers are no longer permitted in swarms, on the payment of two-pence each, to race through the St. Bethlehem galleries, insulting with their ribaldry the most pitiable of God's afflicted creatures. A useful lesson, however, is taught to the few strangers who still, as merely curious observers, obtain admission for a few minutes within the walls of the asylum—a lesson conveyed, not by the sufferings of the patients, so much as by the gentle discipline, the numerous means of innocent amusement, and the air of quiet contentment, which are the characteristics of a well-managed hospital for the insane.
Not less instructive would it be for many who now know of them only through begging circulars and charity dinners, to inspect the well-ventilated, cleanly—and it may be added, cheerful—dwellings of the impoverished sick of London. The principal hospitals of the capital, those, namely, to which medical schools are attached, are eleven in number—St. George's, the London (at Mile End), University College, King's, St. Mary's, Westminster, Middlesex, and Charing-cross, are for the most part dependent on voluntary contributions for support, the Westminster Hospital (instituted 1719) being the first hospital established in this kingdom on the voluntary system. The three other hospitals of the eleven have large endowments, Bartholomew's and Guy's being amongst the wealthiest benevolent foundations of the country.
Like Bethlehem, St. Thomas's Hospital was originally a religious house. At the dissolution of the monasteries it was purchased by the citizens of London, and, in the year 1552, was opened as an hospital for the sick. At the commencement of the last century it was rebuilt by public subscription, three wards being erected at the cost of Thomas Frederick, and three by Guy, the founder of Guy's Hospital.
The first place of precedency amongst the London Hospitals is contended for by St. Bartholomew's and Guy's. They are both alike important by their wealth, the number of patients entertained within their walls, and the celebrity of the surgeons and physicians with whom their schools have enriched the medical profession; but the former, in respect of antiquity, has superior claims to respect. Readers require no introduction to the founder of Bartholomew's, for only lately Dr. Doran, in his "Court Fools," gave a sketch of Rahere—the minstrel and jester, who spent his prime in the follies and vices of courts, and his riper years in the sacred offices of the religious vocation. He began life a buffoon, and ended it a prior—presiding over the establishment to the creation of which he devoted the wealth earned by his abused wit. The monk chronicler says of him: "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 apeings and flatterings, delectably anointing their eyes—by this manner to draw to him their friendships. And yet he was not content with this, but often haunted the king's palace; and, among the press of that tumultuous court, enforced himself with jollity and carnal suavity, by the which he might draw to him the hearts of many one." But the gay adventurer found that the ways of mirth were far from those of true gladness; and, forsaking quips, and jeers, and wanton ditties for deeds of mercy, and prayer, and songs of praise, he long was an ensample unto men of holy living; and "after the years of his prelacy (twenty-two years and six months), the 20th day of September (A. D. 1143), the clay-house of this world forsook, and the house everlasting entered."
In the church of St. Bartholomew may still be seen the tomb of Dr. Francis Anthony, who, in spite of the prosecutions of the College of Physicians, enjoyed a large practice, and lived in pomp in Bartholomew Close, where he died in 1623. The merits of his celebrated nostrum, the aurum potabile, to which Boyle gave a reluctant and qualified approval, are alluded to in the inscription commemorating his services:—
"There needs no verse to beautify thy praise,
Or keep in memory thy spotless name.
Religion, virtue, and thy skill did raise
A three-fold pillar to thy lasting fame.
Though poisonous envy ever sought to blame
Or hide the fruits of thy intention,
Yet shall all they commend that high design
Of purest gold to make a medicine,
That feel thy help by that thy rare invention."
Boyle's testimony to the good results of the aurum potabile is interesting, as his philosophic mind formed a decided opinion on the efficacy of the preparation by observing its operation in two cases—persons of great note. "Though," he says, "I have long been prejudiced against the aurum potabile, and other boasted preparations of gold, for most of which I have no great esteem, yet I saw such extraordinary and surprising effects from the tincture of gold I spake of (prepared by two foreign physicians) upon persons of great note, with whom I was particularly acquainted, both before they fell sick and after their dangerous recovery, that I could not but change my opinion for a very favourable one as to some preparations of gold."
Attached to his priory of St. Bartholomew's, Rahere founded an hospital for the relief of poor and sick persons, out of which has grown the present institution, over the principal gateway of which stands, burly and with legs apart—like a big butcher watching his meat-stall—an effigy of Henry VIII. Another of the art treasures of the hospital is the staircase painted by Hogarth.
If an hospital could speak it could tell strange tales—of misery slowly wrought, ambition foiled, and fair promise ending in shame. Many a toilworn veteran has entered the wards of St. Bartholomew's to die in the very couch by the side of which in his youth he daily passed—a careless student, joyous with the spring of life, and little thinking of the storm and unkind winds rising up behind the smiles of the nearer future. Scholars of gentle birth, brave soldiers of proud lineage, patient women whose girlhood, spent in luxury and refinement, has been followed by penury, evil entreatment, and destitution, find their way to our hospitals—to pass from a world of grief to one where sorrow is not. It is not once in awhile, but daily, that a physician of any large charitable institution of London reads a pathetic tale of struggle and defeat, of honest effort and bitter failure, of slow descent from grade to grade of misfortune—in the tranquil dignity, the mild enduring quiet, and noiseless gratitude of poor sufferers—gentle once in fortune, gentle still in nature. One hears unpleasant stories of medical students, their gross dissipations and coarse manners. Possibly these stories have their foundation in fact, but at best they are broad and unjust caricatures. This writer in his youth lived much amongst the students of our hospitals, as he did also amongst those of our old universities, and he found them simple and manly in their lives, zealous in the pursuit of knowledge, animated by a professional esprit of the best sort, earnestly believing in the dignity of their calling, and characterised by a singular ever-lively compassion for all classes of the desolate and distressed. And this quality of mercy, which unquestionably adorns in an eminent degree the youth of our medical schools, he has always regarded as a happy consequence of their education, making them acquainted, in the most practical and affecting manner, with the sad vicissitudes of human existence.