Caring for the sick poor in St Bartholomew's Exchange: 1580-1676.

The first part of this essay looks at the care of the sick poor in one small London parish, St Bartholomew's Exchange (see map, figure 1), between the 1580s and the 1670s. The second part puts some question-marks around the interpretation that I give to the parish material. The care of the sick poor appears to have analogies with the later care of the sick poor in hospitals, but in the second part I argue on structural, if not on socio-historical, grounds that a case can be made for seeing elements common to both the care of the poor, dependent sick and that of the well-to-do, independent sick.