Devon And Exeter Hospital Case Study

Many infectious cases that would not be be admitted to the Devon and Exeter Hospital, were dealt with in the first 9 months of operation. Whooping cough, small pox, dysentery, scarlatina and general coughs and stomach complaints were treated. Patients were admitted at 12 noon each day, or visited in their homes. In 1828 9,665 cases were dealt with, and its physicians attended many of the cholera cases in the 1832 epidemic. Dr Hennis who was killed in a duel in 1833, working from the Dispensary, laboured tirelessly during the outbreak. Dr Shapter, who chronicled the epidemic in 1848, inaugurated the Devon and Exeter Pathological Society at the Dispensary, in the same year.
After several years of searching for a site to build a purpose designed
At the time of its opening there were already two medical charities in York: the York County Hospital, which had been opened in 1740 as a medical and surgical hospital, and York Lunatic Asylum opened in 1777. All three of these separate charities were supported by the subscriptions of the wealthy, and treated the poor either for free or, in the case of the lunatic asylum, for modest fees .

The York Dispensary, unlike York County Hospital and York Lunatic Asylum, was founded to serve the poor of York City rather than those of the County of Yorkshire. It was designed to complement the medical and surgical services offered by the County Hospital by treating the poor of the city who were suffering from chronic illnesses or other ailments which were excluded from the remit of the hospital: “small pox, measles, hooping cough, putrid sore throats, dysenteries and all kinds of malignant fevers”.
The York Dispensary was at first situated in the York Merchant Adventurers Hall, in two rooms hired for 5 guineas per annum. It saw 900 patients in its first year of operation, and was an instant success.

York Dispensary in the nineteenth
In 1908 it was decided to additionally open a small maternity hospital. This would be for complex cases and those women with difficult home circumstances, but the main driver for its opening was that it would be a place for training pupil midwives. The maternity hospital was at 15 Ogleforth, in premises initially rented and later purchased; 16 Ogleforth was also rented subsequently to increase the maternity accommodation. The maternity hospital was extremely small and treated only between 50 and 70 cases each year. At this period, York Corporation was greatly expanding its maternity and child welfare schemes, aided by government grants, in an effort to lower infant mortality. As a result, in 1922, the maternity hospital was transferred to much larger premises, in the former Acomb Hall, to the south west of the city. This had about 40 beds and its own grounds; the domiciliary maternity service was also based there. The hospital was run jointly by the Dispensary and York Corporation but the Corporation bore all running costs and soon took over the whole of the maternity service. The expense of running a maternity hospital and service had been a great drain on Dispensary funds, and the maternity function was shed with considerable