George Orwell's How The Poor Die

George Orwell’s “How the Poor Die” is a brief anecdotal essay about his time at a French public hospital, referred to as Hopital X. Orwell gives a brief account of the various pseudo-scientific ‘treatments’ that he and his fellow patients were forced to endure. He compares some of the hospital’s practices, such as the rough bathing required for all new patients, to those of a prison or workhouse. Throughout his essay, Orwell reflects on the history of medicine, medicinal practices and the beliefs that surrounded hospitals. “How the Poor Die” was published in 1946, but is believed to have been written during sometime between 1931 and 1936, when Orwell was a freelance writer focusing on the plight of the lower classes1. This was directly before