Greenwich Hospital

“ They have seen the holy city, visited the ancient capitol of the world, and have passed over the identical spot where Jonah was swallowed by the whale. Greenwich Hospital is a very storehouse for knowledge,—a perfect College, in which the old tars take their degrees as natural as when running down a trade-wind,—have their senior wranglers, their M.A. for master-at-arms, their B.A. for boatswain’s-assistant, [70] enjoy good fellowship over a glass of grog, and are staunch supporters of cannon law. ”

“ Greenwich takes a higher level, and though Wren’s work had the disadvantage of having to be accommodated to buildings already erected by another architect, this building, [Pg 222] with its twin domes, its rich outline, and its noble and dignified masses, will always reflect honour upon its designer. The view of Greenwich hospital from the river may fairly be said to be unique for beauty and picturesqueness. ”

“ It won’t do, Tom.”
“It has done from the beginning of the world, and will do. I say there’s no learning without practice. People spoil at first in every trade, and make afterwards, and a man ain’t born a doctor any more than he is a carpenter.”
“No, but if I recollect right, to be a surgeon you ought to walk the hospital, as they term it.”
“Well, and haven’t I for these last four years? When I carries out my basket of physic I walks the hospital right through, twice at least every day in the week.”
“That’s Greenwich Hospital.” ”

“ Besides these, there are several Lying-in hospitals, a Floating hospital on the Thames, now substituted by a part of Greenwich Hospital being devoted to a similar use; various Ophthalmic hospitals, and numerous Dispensaries and Infirmaries for particular diseases. Institutions for the relief of indigent persons, Deaf and Dumb asylums, Blind asylums, and Orphan asylums, are far too numerous to be specified. ”

“ It was therefore determined that a grant of £20,000 should be made to Greenwich Hospital out of the Consolidated Fund, and that the merchant sailors should go on paying their shilling a month for their own benefit (masters paying two shillings) , and that a provision for widows and children should be included in the charity, the benefits of which were to be extended to Scotland and Ireland.
The hospital never was built. The Board of Trade taking the management of the contributions, appointed trustees, who were altogether incompetent, and did their duty in a perfunctory or careless manner. ”

“ For the residence of this society, I cannot think any place more proper than Greenwich hospital, in which they may have thirty apartments fitted up for them, that they may make their observations in private, and meet, once a day, in the painted hall to compare them. ”

“ Along with other royal palaces Greenwich was at the Revolution appropriated by the Protector, but it reverted to the crown on the restoration of Charles II., by whom it was pulled down, and the west wing of the present hospital was erected as part of an extensive design which was not further carried out. In its unfinished state it was assigned by the patent of William and Mary to certain of the great officers of state, as commissioners for its conversion into a hospital for seamen; and it was opened as such in 1705. The building consists of four blocks. Behind a terrace 860 ft. ”

“ He concurred in the revolution of 1688, in 1695 was entrusted with the office of treasurer of Greenwich hospital for old sailors, and laid the first stone of the new building on the 30th of June 1696. ”

“ Until 1865 Greenwich Hospital continued to be one of the most useful and appreciated charitable institutions of the United Kingdom, but at that date it was decided, in accordance with the wishes of the seamen, that they should be allowed pensions enabling them to live in their own homes. In 1869 the last of the inmates left, and four years later the buildings were re-opened as a naval college, those named after Queen Anne being set aside as a museum of naval relics, models of ships, etc., for the use of the students, to which, however, the public are admitted. ”

“ At all events, there can be no want of corns in Greenwich Hospital among the pensioners. I am desired to say that Lady T gives no wages the first year; and you will be expected to send your daughter neatly fitted out, that she may be able to remain in the room when there is company. If this offer will not suit, I can do nothing more; the difficulty of patronage increases every day. You will send an answer.
“Virginia Hawkingtrefylyan.
“I was just closing my letter when Lady Scrimmage came in; she tells me that Lady Towser is suited, and that you have no hopes of this situation. ”

“ In 1855 he was appointed to the charge of Plymouth Hospital, in 1861 to Greenwich Hospital, and was placed on the retired list in 1865, receiving the honour of knighthood. In 1859 he was named honorary physician to the queen, when the distinction was first instituted. ”

“ In November 1765 he was appointed governor of Greenwich Hospital, and during the five years that he held this appointment is said to have suggested and insisted on several measures conducive to the comfort and well-being of the pensioners. ”

“ It was then devoted to the accommodation of the students of the Royal Naval College, the Infirmary being granted to the Seamen’s Hospital Society. Behind the College is the Royal Hospital School, where 1000 boys, sons of petty officers and seamen, are boarded.
To the south of the hospital is Greenwich Park (185 acres) , lying high, and commanding extensive views over London, the Thames and the plain of Essex. It was enclosed by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and laid out by Charles II., and contains a fine avenue of Spanish chestnuts planted in his time. ”

“ Occupying as it does a unique position on the Thames, which is here often crowded with British and foreign shipping, owning in the group of buildings collectively known as the Hospital one of the masterpieces of eighteenth-century domestic architecture, and in its park one of the most beautiful open spaces near the capital, whilst its Observatory gives to it the distinction of a leader in astronomical research, Greenwich has long ranked as one of the most important and popular suburbs of London. ”

“ In 1774 he was advanced to be lieutenant-governor of the hospital, and in March 1778 published a work of 116 pages in quarto, the best account of which is its title. It runs; 'The Case of the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, containing a comprehensive view of the internal government, in which are stated the several abuses that have been introduced into that great national establishment, wherein landsmen have been appointed to offices contrary to charter; the ample revenues wasted in useless works, and money obtained by petition to parliament to make good deficiencies ”

“ The disadvantages, inseparable from general hospitals, are such as can never be counterpoised by all the regularities of medicine and regimen. Nature and kind nursing save a much greater proportion in our plain way, at a smaller expense, and with less abuse. One branch only of hospital institution is wanting with us; that is, a general establishment for those laboring under difficult cases of chirurgery. ”

“ Thomas' Hospitals, now in process of construction at the Surrey Side of the Thames, in Lambeth, opposite the Houses of Parliament, will combine a number of hospitals for Special Diseases, and will accommodate about 2,000 patients, with as many beds, and will have an income of £50,000 a year, or more.
It is impossible to think of any disease, complaint, deformity, or injury to any member or organ of the body, which has not its special hospital or institution for relief or cure, in the English metropolis. ”

“ To avoid these evils, public laundries are established in the outskirts of Hygeia, each with an extensive drying-ground, and all under sanitary inspection.
There is no one gigantic hospital, nor any hospital for special diseases—with perhaps one or two exceptions. Numerous small hospitals are distributed equidistant throughout the city; each constructed according to the most approved and efficient plan, and surrounded by its own open grounds. ”

“ These Hospitals were freely used by wounded men of all units from the front, and became the radiant centres of a large number of War Hospitals in the county. From the parent institutions in Leeds and Sheffield, Auxiliary Hospitals sprang up throughout the West Riding of Yorkshire, as many as 6,500 beds being affiliated to the 2nd Northern General Hospital alone. From August, 1914, till late in 1919, this splendid work, of which the foundations were laid in peace-time, was in full swing, and should form an important chapter in a complete history of the Territorial Force. ”

“ Such disadvantages might be entirely removed if parliament would decide to throw open every poor-law infirmary for clinical purposes, and to have connected with each such establishment a responsible visiting medical staff, consisting of the best qualified men to be found in the community which each hospital serves. The old prejudice against hospital treatment has disappeared, for the least intelligent members of the population now understand that, when a citizen is sick, there is no place so good as the wards of a well-administered hospital. ”

“ Another problem is the question of creating, in connection with General hospitals, wards where patients of this sort may receive at the beginning of their treatment, their preliminary examination, where they may be evacuated home with compensation or without compensation, or evacuated to a prolonged treatment hospital for further care.
It has sometimes been difficult to get enough men, trained personnel, to man these wards. ”

“ Our hospitals in London are always crowded, the waiting-lists mount up till it seems hopeless to attack them, and all the time it is because we have no base hospital down in the country to which our patients might be sent to recover. I wonder how long it will be before each of the great London hospitals has its own base down in the country, with its own motor ambulances and its own ambulance coaches to carry its patients in comfort by rail to surroundings where they could recover as can never be possible in the middle of the London slums? ”

“ There are five Hospitals: one of them, St Giles’, founded originally for the entertainment of strangers, was, by Henry VIII. appropriated to the poor of the city; which maintains 104 poor men and women, who are all cloathed in grey, and must be sixty years of age. Another for 16 poor men and 8 women, whose livery is purple. Cooke’s Hospital, in the Rose-lane, maintains 10 poor women; and Doughty’s, which was founded in 1687, supports 24 poor men and 8 women. ”

“ It is a curious reflection that whilst in the present war the base hospital has been given, if anything, an undue importance, in the other war it has been practically neglected. Our great hospitals are almost entirely field hospitals, planted right in the middle of the battle, and there we keep our patients till such time as they are to all intents and purposes cured. A very few convalescent homes will admit cases which still require treatment, but only a very few. ”

“ Often, too, these diseases rose to the height of epidemic pestilences, so that patients, however extreme their need, dreaded the very name of hospital, and the most skilful surgeons distrusted their own craft. New hospitals or new wards were built, yet after a very short time the new became as pestiferous as the old; and even scrupulous care in ventilation and housemaids’ cleanliness failed to prevent the devastation. Surgery had enlarged its freedom, but only to find the weight of its new responsibilities more than it could bear. ”

“ My Richmond friends never lost sight of me for one day during my service in that city. Nearly every day my little boy was sent for to play among happy children, far away from the impure atmosphere of the hospital, which was soon filled with patients suffering from almost every form of disease.
As the demand for more room became pressing, the three stories of the main building were successively utilized, as well as a large storage-room in the yard. The ground-floor contained the surgeons' and steward's offices, store-rooms, etc., while the second and third formed two immense sick-wards. ”

“ Here, since 1897, thousands of sick have been cared for and nursed back to health and strength with more scientific care and almost as much loving attention as they could receive in their own homes. In 1897 the corner-stone was laid and from that time the Hospital has steadily grown and progressed, gaining in strength and usefulness, and now is recognized as essential to the city and surrounding counties. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They have also done much to alleviate the sufferings of mankind. There have been sixty physicians, all marked men. Dr. Richard Smith Dewey was an eminent surgeon in the Franco-Prussian war, having charge of the Prussian hospital at Hesse Cassel. Dr. Sereno Edwards Dwight was a physician and surgeon in the British regular army. The physicians of the family have had important connection with insane asylums and hospitals. The legislative action of New York, by which the first insane asylum of the state was built, was largely the result of a physician of this family. ”