Hospitals established by local authorities and charities for the relief of the poor existed long before the NHS was founded. These hospitals adapted, however, to changing circumstances and widened and altered their treatment models within this new medical environment.
The College is undertaking a project to catalogue, digitise and make available online our collection of the patient records of Edinburgh's Public Dispensary, established in 1776. To put this project into context, this blog gives an overview of the eighteenth century British dispensary movement.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were, for medicine, notable for their great plurality. There were all kinds of treatments on offer – healers, quacks, wise women, and itinerant sellers of all manner of cures. Orthodox medicine, however – practiced by trained and qualified physicians - was largely reserved for the elite. As hospitals were rare, and often more focused on spiritual wellbeing than medical treatments, wealthy folk were usually treated in their homes – either by a visiting physician, or via correspondence.
