Stage-managing a hospital in the eighteenth century: visitation at the London Lock Hospital.
London's Lock Hospital, established in 1747 to treat venereal diseases, depended heavily on charity. Its administrators tried valiantly to project a positive image of the hospital in spite of the pervading moral assumptions about its patients and doubts about whether they deserved charity. Policies governing visitation were bound up in the hospital's attempts to police itself and promote its cause to benefactors. Visitation policies served numerous ends, including policing patients, introducing moral reform, monitoring the staff, and obscuring the reality of the wards from public view, ensuring that prospective donors only saw what administrators wanted them to see.
Trent University, Canada.
Kevin
K
Siena
D004739:England; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006739:Hospital Administration / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D008131:London; D014789:Visitors to Patients / Q000266:history*