Aug. 6.
The ancient church was honourably distinguished by its charity towards the poor, and more especially towards the diseased poor; and it was a dreary interval of nearly two centuries which intervened between the extinction of its lazar-houses and leper-houses, and the time when merely a civilised humanity dictated the establishment of a regulated means of succour for the sickness-stricken of the humbler classes. The date here affixed is an interesting one, as that when a hospital of the modern type was first opened in Scotland for the reception of poor patients.
The idea of establishing such an institution in Edinburgh was first agitated in a pamphlet in 1721, and there is reason to believe that the requirements of the rising medical school were largely concerned in dictating it. The matter fell asleep, but was revived in 1725, with a proposal to raise a fund of at least two thousand pounds sterling to carry it out. Chiefly by the activity of the |1729.| medical profession, this fund was realised; and now the first step of practical beneficence was taken by the opening of a house, and the taking in of a small number of patients, for whom six physicians and surgeons undertook to give attendance and medicine. The total number here received during the first year was the modest one of thirty-five, of whom nineteen were dismissed as cured.
Such was the origin of the Edinburgh Infirmary, which, small as it was at first, was designed from its very origin as a benefit to the whole kingdom, no one then dreaming that a time would come when every considerable county town would have a similar hospital. In 1735, the contributors were incorporated, and three years later, they began to rear a building for their purpose, calculated to accommodate seventeen hundred patients per annum, allowing six weeks’ residence for each at an average. It is remarkable how cordially the upper classes and the heads of the medical profession concurred in raising and managing this noble institution, and how readily the industrious orders all over the country responded to the appeals made to their charity for its support. While many contributed money, ‘others gave stones, lime, wood, slate, and glass, which were carried by the neighbouring farmers gratis. Not only many master masons, wrights, slaters, and glaziers gave their attendance, but many journeymen and labourers frequently gave their labour gratis; and many joiners gave sashes for the windows.’ A Newcastle glass-making company generously glazed the whole house. By correspondence and personal intervention, money was drawn for the work, not only throughout England and Ireland, but in other parts of Europe, and even in America.[[690]]
It has always been admitted that the prime moving spirit in the whole undertaking was George Drummond, one of the Commissioners of Customs, and on three several occasions Lord Provost of Edinburgh; a man of princely aspect and character, further memorable as the projector of the New Town. His merits in regard to the Infirmary have, indeed, been substantially acknowledged by the setting up of a portrait of him in the council-room, and a bust by Nollekins in the hall, the latter having this inscription, dictated by Principal Robertson: ‘George Drummond, to whom this country is indebted for all the benefit which it derives from the Royal Infirmary.’[[691]]
1729.
It is not unworthy of being kept in mind that, in the business of levying means from a distance, Drummond was largely assisted by an eccentric sister, named May, who had adopted the tenets of Quakerism, and occasionally made tours through various parts of Great Britain for the purpose of preaching to the people, of whom vast multitudes used to flock to hear her. She was a gentle enthusiast, of interesting appearance, and so noted did her addresses become, that Queen Caroline at length condescended to listen to one. We get some idea of her movements in the summer of 1735, from a paragraph regarding her then inserted in a London newspaper: ‘We hear that the famous preaching maiden Quaker (Mrs Drummond, who preached before the queen), lately arrived from Scotland, intends to challenge the champion of England, Orator Henley, to dispute with him at the Bull and Mouth, upon the doctrines and tenets of Quakerism, at such time as he shall appoint.’
In the pages, moreover, of Sylvanus Urban, ‘a Lady’ soon after poured forth strains of the highest admiration regarding this
‘——happy virgin of celestial race,
Adorned with wisdom, and replete with grace;’