The London Hospital in 1900

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Arthur H. Beavan continued his survey of London's hospitals at the turn of the twentieth century in Imperial London, published in 1901, with this look at The London Hospital:

I must specifically mention but one other of these large beneficent institutions, the London Hospital, or, as a bold inscription on its frontage proclaimed, the Great General Hospital for East London; a wonderful place, not endowed like Bart's, Guy's, and St Thomas's, but almost entirely dependent for its maintenance upon voluntary contributions.

It was originally founded, in 1740, as an Infirmary in Goodman's Fields, and twelve years later was removed to the present buildings in the Whitechapel Road.

It started on a modest scale with four hundred and forty beds (the number in 1900 had more than doubled), and its patients were, as they always had been, the poor workers, such as coal-heavers, watermen, costermongers, and labourers generally.

It possessed fine operating and clinical theatres, and wards as perfect as they could be, one of which was set apart exclusively for Jews, who were common in the neighbourhood.

It was distinguished as being one of the first hospitals to adopt the new treatment of that dreadful disease, lupus, by strong concentrated rays of light, which it had been found tended to destroy the bacteria that are, presumably, the cause of the malady.

The scale upon which this noble charity dealt with a mass of disease and suffering was so vast, that I believe the yearly death-rate within its walls was above 1250 out of 12,200 patients treated, largely due to the immense number of "serious accident" admittances; and the people to whom it afforded surgical and medical assistance must have numbered several millions. (In 1850, the figures were close upon one and a half millions.)

As to its external appearance, it was absolutely plain and utilitarian; even its new wing had no architectural feature worth recording.

Next: London's Health Care in 1900: Workhouses