Westminster Hospital, 1716–1966

(i) Westminster Hospital, 1716-1966, by J. G. HUMBLE AND P. HANSELL, London, Pitman Medical Publishing Co., 1966, pp. x, 134, illus., 21s. (ii) Geschichte des Hospitals, Bd. 1: Westdeutschland von den Anfdngen bis 1850, by D. JETFER (Sudhoffs Archiv, Beiheft 5), Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1966, pp. viii, 270, 104 illus., DM. 66 or 74. These two books could hardly be more different. Dr. Humble's is based on a course of lectures which he refers to rather disarmingly as his 'meanderings'. Nevertheless it will be welcomed and appreciated for the lively way in which it presents the Westminster's history, and there wfill be much admiration for the skilful interspersion of Mr. Hansell's photographs amongst the text. Dieter Jetter's book is much more ambitious and does him nothing but credit. It is comprehensive, thorough and systematic, well documented (the bibliography contains 815 items) and based on much solid research in archives (the numerous illustrations include many plans and engravings found in these repositories). All this is worthy of praise. Impressive also is the author's concern to place hospitals in their authentic social setting. He constantly refers us to events which shaped the motives of hospital-founders or affected the evolution of hospitals. There are those, apparently, who still need convincing of the contribution which medical history can make to a student's education. Such people ought to read Jetter's book (perhaps, one day, there will be an English version), for it expands one's horizons in most unexpected ways. It is, in fact, a road into the humanities. To take examples from four areas of human activity. (i) Architecture. The plans and engravings assembled by Jetter are an education in themselves, covering as they do several centuries of architectural styles. Many of these hospitals can still be seen and one might easily arrange a holiday around visits to a few of them; e.g. the baroque 'Heilig-Geist' hospital at Fulda (founded 1729), Nordlingen's thirteenth-entury foundation, and Celle's former madhouse-cumprison (1710) where the inscription above the door reads 'This state-supported house is dedicated to the punishment of evildoers and the supervision of the deranged'. (ii) Economics. Jetter never fire of reminding us (cynically, perhaps, but with no little justification) of the mixed motives in the minds of certain hospital-founders. In this respect he mentions the 30 Years War and its aftermath of devastated lands and depopulated territories. After repopulation came the need to maintain good health, for productivity was no less important then than today. (iii) Religion. Again Jetter loves to lay motives bare and nowhere more aptly does he do this than when he describes Germany's finest sixteenth-entury hospital, at Wiirzburg, founded by the Bishop von Mespelbrunn as a 'bulwark against Luther and Calvin' and as a sort of prepayment for the salvation of his soul-'In praece pauperum spem habui'. (iv) Government. Jetter relates how an obsession with the need to maintain public order led many rulers to lump 'lunatics' and 'criminals' in almost the same category and to