Throughout the Victorian period, life-threatening diseases were no respector of class, affecting rich and poor alike. However, the medical treatment for such diseases differed significantly, depending on the patient's social class. The wealthy received private medical treatment at home, or, later, in a practitioner's consulting room. The middle classes could also pay for either home treatment, or attend one of an increasing number of specialist hospitals. The working classes, by contrast, might receive free treatment from charitable voluntary hospitals or dispensaries. For the abject poor, the only option was to seek treatment at the workhouse infirmary.
The experience of a patient going into hospital at this time was vastly different from today. However, it was over this period that many different methods for treating diseases, as well as antiseptic and aseptic techniques to combat killer hospital infections, were developed.
This well-researched and richly illustrated book describes the developments which paved the way toward today's high standards of care in Britain and the Western world.
Contents:
Acknowledgements
Introduction
P>Part 1. The Development of Hospitals
1. The Hospitals of the Eighteenth Century
2. General Voluntary and Endowed Hospitals
3. Specialist Hospitals
4. Dispensaries
5. Children's Hospitals
6. Poor Law Infirmaries
7. Hospitals for Infections Diseases
8. Cottage Hospitals
9. Hospitals for Paying Patients
10. Convalescent Homes
11. Lunatic Asylums
Part 2. Going to Hospital
12. Getting Medical Treatment
13. Admission Procedures to Hospital
14. Out-patients
15. In-patients
16. Accidents and Emergencies
17. Conditions in Hospital
18. Treatment of Diseases
19. Surgical Cases
20. Medical Innovations
21. Discharge from Hospital
Part 3. Going Into an Asylum
22. Admission to Asylums
23. Pauper and Private Patients
24. Mental Illnesses and their Causes
25. Living Conditions in Asylums
26. Treatment in Asylums
27. Recovery
Part 4. Medical Staff
28. Physicians and Surgeons
29. Matrons
30. Nurses
Notes
Bibliography
Index
