MEDICAL BUILDINGS.
The medical buildings of London are seldom or never visited by the
sight-seers of the metropolis. Though the science and art of nursing
have recently been made sources of amusement to the patrons of
circulating libraries, the good sense and delicacy of the age are
against converting the wards of an hospital into galleries for public
amusement. In the last century the reverse was the case. Fashionable
idlers were not indeed anxious to pry into the mysteries of
Bartholomew's, Guy's, and St. Thomas's hospitals; for a visit to those
magnificent institutions was associated in their minds with a risk of
catching fevers or the disfiguring small-pox. But Bethlehem, devoted
to the entertainment and cure of the insane, was a favourite haunt
with all classes. "Pepys," "The London Spy," "The Tatler," and "The
Rake's Progress," give us vivid pictures of a noisy rout of Pall Mall
beaus and belles, country fly-catchers, and London scamps, passing up
and down the corridors of the great asylum, mocking its unhappy
inmates with brutal jests, or investigating and gossiping about their
delusions and extravagances with unfeeling curiosity. Samuel Johnson
enlivened himself with an occasional stroll amongst the lunatics, just
as he periodically indulged himself with witnessing a hanging, a
judicial flogging, or any other of the pleasant spectacles with which
Hogarth's London abounded. Boswell and he once strolled through the
mansions of the insane; and on another occasion, when he visited the
same abode with Murphy, Foote, and Wedderburne (afterwards Lord
Loughborough), the philosopher's "attention was arrested by a man who
was very furious, and who, while beating his straw, supposed it was
William, Duke of Cumberland, whom he was punishing for his cruelties
in Scotland in 1746." Steele, when he took three schoolboys (imagine
the glee of Sir Richard's schoolboy friends out with him for a frolic)
in a hackney coach to show them the town, paid his respects to "the
lions, the tombs, Bedlam, and the other places, which are
entertainments to raw minds because they strike forcibly on the
fancy." In the same way Pepys "stept into Bedlam, and saw several poor
miserable creatures in chains, one of whom was _mad with making
verses_," a form of mental aberration not uncommon in these days,
though we do not deem it necessary to consign the victims of it to
medical guardianship.
The original Bethlehem hospital was established by Henry VIII., in a
religious house that had been founded in 1246, by Simon Fitz-Mary,
Sheriff of London, as an ecclesiastical body. The house was situated
at Charing-cross, and very soon the king began to find it (when used
for the reception of lunatics) disagreeably near his own residence.
The asylum was therefore removed, at a "cost nigh £17,000," to
Bishopgate Without, where it remained till 1814, and the inmates were
removed to the present noble hospital in St. George's Fields, the
first stone of which was laid April 18th, 1812.
One of the regulations of old Bedlam has long since been disused. The
harmless lunatics were allowed to roam about the country with a tin
badge--the star of St. Bethlehem--on the right arm. Tenderness towards
those to whom the Almighty has denied reason is a sentiment not
confined to the East. Wherever these poor creatures went they received
alms and kindly entreatment. The ensign on the right arm announced to
the world their lamentable condition and their need of help, and the
appeal was always mercifully responded to. Aubrey thus describes their
appearance and condition:--
"Till the breaking out of the Civil Wars Tom o' Bedlams did travel
about the country. They had been poor distracted men, but had been put
into Bedlam, where recovering some soberness, they were licentiated to
go a-begging, _i. e._ they had on their left arm an armilla of tin,
about four inches long; they could not get it off. They wore about
their necks a great horn of an ox in a string of baudry, which, when
they came to an house for alms, they did wind, and they did put the
drink given them into this horn, whereto they did put the stopple.
Since the wars I do not remember to have seen any one of them."
The custom, however, continued long after the termination of the Civil
War. It is not now the humane practice to label our fools, so that
society may at once recognise them and entertain them with kindness.
They still go at large in our public ways. Facilities are even given
them for effecting an entrance into the learned professions.
Frequently they are docketed with titles of respect, and decked with
the robes of office. But however gratifying this plan may be to their
personal vanity it is not unattended with cruelty. Having about them
no external mark of their sad condition, they are often, through
carelessness and misapprehension--not through hardness of
heart--chastised with undue severity. "Poor Tom, thy horn is dry,"
says Edgar, in "Lear." Never may the horn of mercy be dry to such poor
wretches!
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.
Guy's hospital was the benevolent work of a London bookseller, who, by
perseverance, economy, and lucky speculation, amassed a very large
fortune. Thomas Guy began life with a stock of about £200, as a
stationery and bookseller in a little corner house between Cornhill
and Lombard-st., taking out his freedom of the Stationers' Company in
1668. He was a thrifty tradesman, but he won his wealth rather by
stock-jobbing than by the sale of books, although he made important
sums by his contract with the University of Oxford for their privilege
of printing bibles. Maitland informs us, "England being engaged in an
expensive war against France, the poor seamen on board the royal navy,
for many years, instead of money received tickets for their pay, which
those necessitous but very useful men were obliged to dispose of at
thirty, forty, and sometimes fifty in the hundred discount. Mr. Guy,
discovering the sweets of this traffick, became an early dealer
therein, as well as in other government securities, by which, and his
trade, he acquired a very great estate." In the South-sea stock he was
not less lucky. He bought largely at the outset, held on till the
bubble reached its full size, and ere the final burst sold out. It may
be questioned whether Guy's or Rahere's money was earned the more
honourably,--whether to fawn, flatter, and jest at the table of
princes was a meaner course of exertion than to drive a usurious trade
with poor sailors, and fatten on a stupendous national calamity. But
however basely it may have been gathered together, Guy's wealth was
well expended, in alleviating the miseries of the same classes from
whose sufferings it had been principally extracted. In his old age
Guy set about building his hospital, and ere his death, in 1724, saw
it completed. On its erection and endowment he expended £238,292
16_s._ 5_d._ To his honour it must be stated that, notwithstanding
this expenditure and his munificent contributions to other charities,
he had a considerable residue of property, which he distributed
amongst his poor relations.
Of the collegiate medical buildings of London, the one that belongs to
the humblest department of the profession is the oldest, and for that
reason--apart from its contents, which are comparatively of little
value--the most interesting. Apothecaries' Hall, in Water Lane,
Blackfriars, was built in 1670. Possibly the size and imposing aspect
of their college stimulated the drug-vendors to new encroachments on
the prescriptive and enacted rights of the physicians. The rancour of
"The Dispensary" passes over the merits (graces it has none) of the
structure, and designates it by mentioning its locality--
"Nigh where Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams,
To wash his sooty Naiads in the Thames,
There stands a structure on a rising hill,
Where tyros take their freedom out to kill."
Amongst the art-treasures of the hall are a portrait of James I. (who
first established the apothecaries as a company distinct from the
grocers), and a bust of Delaune, the lucky apothecary of that
monarch's queen, who has already been mentioned in these pages.
The elegant college of the physicians, in Pall Mall east, was not
taken into use till the 25th of June, 1825, the doctors migrating to
it from Warwick Hall, which is now in the occupation of the butchers
of Newgate Market. Had the predecessors of the present tenants been
"the surgeons," instead of "the physicians," the change of masters
would have given occasion for a joke. As it is, not even the
consolation of a jest can be extracted from the desecration of an
abode of learning that has many claims on our affection.
In "The Dispensary," the proximity of the college dome to the Old
Bailey is playfully pointed at:--
"Not far from that most celebrated place,
Where angry justice shows her awful face,
Where little villains must submit to fate,
That great ones may enjoy the world in state,
There stands a dome, majestic to the sight,
And sumptuous arches bear its oval height;
A golden globe, placed high with artful skill,
Seems, to the distant sight, a gilded pill:
This pile was, by the pious patron's aim,
Raised for a use as noble as its frame.
Nor did the learn'd society decline
The propagation of that great design;
In all her mazes, Nature's face they view'd,
And, as she disappear'd, their search pursued.
Wrapt in the shade of night, the goddess lies,
Yet to the learn'd unveils her dark disguise,
But shuns the gross access of vulgar eyes."
The Warwick Lane college was erected on the college at Amen Corner (to
which the physicians removed on quitting their original abode in
Knight-Rider Street), being burnt to the ground in the great fire of
1666. Charles II. and Sir John Cutler were ambitious of having their
names associated with the new edifice, the chief fault of which was
that, like all the other restorations following the memorable
conflagration, it was raised near the old site. Charles became its
pious patron, and Sir John Cutler its munificent benefactor. The
physicians duly thanked them, and honoured them with statues, Cutler's
effigy having inscribed beneath it, "Omnis Cutleri cedat labor
Amphitheatro."
So far, so good. The fun of the affair remains to be told. On Sir
John's death, his executors, Lord Radnor and Mr. Boulter, demanded of
the college £7000, which covered in amount a sum the college had
borrowed of their deceased benefactor, and also the sum he pretended
to have given. Eventually the executors lowered their claim to £2000
(which, it is reasonable to presume, had been _lent_ by Sir John), and
discontinued their demand for the £5000 given. Such being the stuff of
which Sir John was made, well might Pope exclaim:--
"His Grace's fate sage Cutler could foresee,
And well (he thought) advised him, 'Live like me.'
As well his Grace replied, 'Like you, Sir John?
That I can do when all I have is gone.'"
In consideration of the £5000 retained of the niggard's money, the
physicians allowed his statue to remain, but they erased the
inscription from beneath it.
The Royal College of Surgeons in London was not incorporated till the
year 1800--more than half a century after the final disruption of the
surgeons from the barbers--and the college in Lincoln's Inn Fields was
not erected till 1835. Its noble museum, based on the Hunterian
Collection, which the nation purchased for £15,000, contains, amongst
its treasures, a few preparations that are valuable for their
historical associations or sheer eccentricity, rather than for any
worth from a strictly scientific point of view. Amongst them are
Martin Van Buchell's first wife, whose embalmment by William Hunter
has already been mentioned; the intestines of Napoleon, showing the
progress of the disease which was eventually fatal to him; and the
fore-arms (preserved in spirits) of Thomas Beaufort, third son of John
of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.
The writer had recently submitted to his notice, by Dr. Diamond of
Twickenham, a very interesting and beautifully penned manuscript,
relating to these remains, of which the following is a copy:--
"BURY ST EDMUNDS.
"_Joseph Pater scripsit, when thirteen years of age._
"On the 20th of February, 1772, some labourers, employed in breaking
up part of the old abbey church, discovered a leaden coffin, which
contained an embalmed body, as perfect and entire as at the time of
its death; the features and lineaments of the face were perfect, which
were covered with a mask of embalming materials. The very colour of
the eyes distinguishable; the hairs of the head a brown, intermixed
with some few gray ones; the nails fast upon the fingers and toes as
when living; stature of the body about six feet tall, and genteelly
formed. The labourers, for the sake of the lead (which they sold to Mr
Faye, a plummer, in this town, for about 15s), stript the body of its
coffin, and threw it promiscuously amongst the rubbish. From the place
of its interment it was soon found to be the remains of Thomas
Beaufort, third son of John de Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, by his third
duchess, Lady Catherine Swineford, relict of Sir Otho de Swineford, of
Lincolnshire. He took the name of Beaufort from the place of his
birth, a castle of the duke's, in France. He was half-brother to King
Henry IV., created Duke of Exeter and Knight of the Garter; in 1410,
Lord Chancellor of England; in 1412, High Admiral of England, and
Captain of Calais; he commanded the Rear-Guard of his nephew King
Henry the Fifth's army at the battle of Agincourt, on the 25th of
October, 1415; and in 1422, upon the death of King Henry the Fifth,
was jointly with his brother, Henry, Cardinal Bishop of Winchester,
appointed by the Parliament to the government, care, and education of
the royal infant, Henry the Sixth. He married Margaret, daughter of
Sir Thomas Nevil, by whom he had issue only one son, who died young.
He was a great benefactor to this church, died at East Greenwich,
1427, in the 5th year of King Henry ye Sixth, and was interred in this
Abbey, near his duchess (as he had by his will directed), at the
entrance of the Chapel of our Lady, close to the wall. On the 24th of
February following, the mangled remains were enclosed in an oak
coffin, and buried about eight feet deep, close to the north side of
the north-east pillar, which formerly assisted to support the Abbey
belfry. Before its re-interment, the body was mangled and cut with the
most savage barbarity by Thomas Gery Cullum, a young surgeon in this
town, lately appointed Bath King-at-Arms. The skull sawed in pieces,
where the brain appeared it seemed somewhat wasted, but perfectly
contained in its proper membranes; the body ript open from the neck to
the bottom, the cheek cut through by a saw entering at the mouth; his
arms chopped off below the elbows and taken away. One of the arms the
said Cullum confesses to have in spirits. The crucifix, supposed to be
a very valuable one, is missing. It is believed the body of the
duchess was found (within about a foot of the Duke's) on the 24th of
February. If she was buried in lead she was most likely conveyed away
clandestinely the same night. In this church several more of the
antient royal blood were interred, whose remains are daily expected to
share the same fate. Every sensible and humane mind reflects with
horror at the shocking and wanton inhumanity with which the princely
remains of the grandson of the victorious King Edward the Third have
been treated--worse than the body of a common malefactor, and 345
years after his death. The truth of this paragraph having been
artfully suppressed, or very falsely represented in the county
newspapers, and the conveyance of public intelligence rendered
doubtful, no method could be taken to convey a true account to the
public but by this mode of offering it."
The young surgeon whose conduct is here so warmly censured was the
younger son of a Suffolk baronet. On the death of his brother he
succeeded to the family estate and honours, and having no longer any
necessity to exert himself to earn money, relinquished medical
practice. He was born in 1741 and died in 1831. It is from him that
the present baronet, of Hawstead Place and Hardwicke House, in the
county of Suffolk, is descended.
The fore-arms, now in the custody of the College of Surgeons, were for
a time separated. One of them was retained by Mr. Cullum, and the
other, becoming the property of some mute inglorious Barnum, was taken
about to all the fairs and wakes of the county, and exhibited as a
raree-show at a penny a peep. The vagrant member, however, came back
after a while to Mr. Cullum, and he presented both of the mutilated
pertions to their present possessors.