Queen Mary and Westfield College London University PhD Thesis ...

Lunacy', but also for her 'sore legg' 237. Indeed, the hospital's Governors and benefactors re-
garded such cases as so much a part of the relief Bethiem offered that they occasionally spoke of
'Lunaticks and others taken into the said hospital for Cure'. Exceptionally, a diseased patient
was actually retained until 'cured of her Lunacy' before being conveyed to another hospital 'to
be cured of her diseases' 239 . By the eighteenth century, out-patients, too, might receive surgical
assistance at the hospital's charge 240 . Often, however, staff had failed to detect 'Wounds and
Sores' on patients' bodies, or patients' 'Friends Neglect[ed] to give Notice' of them, at the time
they were admitted, with obvious ill consequences for the condition of the injury (and for the
expenses of the hospital). It was not until 1778, in an effort to meet this neglect, that servants
were instructed 'that every Patient on his or her admission be stripped and Examined...in the
presence of their Friends and if Necessary that the Surgeon of the Hospital have Immediate
Information'241.
Smallpox, furthermore, was a considerable scourge upon the hospital's inmates, and the
Governors and officers of Bethlem were rather slow in taking the preventative and quarantining
measures being instituted at other contemporary hospitals 242 . Sufferers amongst the patients
were retained at the hospital until the latter eighteenth century. From early on in the century,
they were clearly placed under the special care of the Nurse 243 , yet there is little indication
of diseased patients being isolated in their cells, or of any other quarantine procedure, nor of
inoculation being employed at Bethiem, while the hospital was far from efficient in excluding
237 Thid, 27 May 1663, loIs 48 & 50.
238 mId, 23 Nov. 1716, fol. 245, will of Richard Taylor, brother of the Treasurer to the hospitals, John Taylor.
239 See case of Alice Pye, ordered admitted to Bethlem on 23 Dec. 1673, & ordered continued on these grounds
c15 weeks later, before being transferred to St. Thomas's. BCGM, 6 April 1671, fol. 288.
240 E g. case of Thomas Smith, 'an Out Patient', described as 'Very poor', who was allowed 'a Truss for a
Rupture' for which he stood 'in great want'; BSCM, 1 Jan. 1726, fol. 252.
241 BSCM, 19 Sept. 1778.
242 Luke's, e.g., from 1769, made provision for the nursing of patients with smallpox 'out of the House' &
ordered that the friends of any patient with smallpox be notified. Patients were not aent to the Londos, Smallpox
hospital, however, until the late, 1770s. See SLHCM, 19 May, 16 June & 15 Dec. 1769, 22 May 1772, 5 June
1795 & also 24 Oct. 1766, re. death of a hospital servant from smallpox.
243 Most of the time the hospital's minutes fall to speciFy the exact nature of patients' sicknesses. See, however,
BSA, 10-17 April & 15-22 May 1731, fols 482 & 487, where the Nurse is being paid an allowance of 8/ a week
for at least 3 patients with smallpox.
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