There is an excellent seven-minute film shown in the museum which details some of the more colourful episodes of Barts’ history.
Founded in 1123 during the reign of King Henry I, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital – usually known as Barts – is the oldest hospital in Europe. It survived a precarious financial position during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, until Henry VIII refounded it in 1547, endowing it with properties that would secure its income in the future. In gratitude, the grandest gate to the hospital was named in his honour, and the Henry VIII entrance continues to serve as its main entrance. The statue of the king just above the gate is the only remaining one of him in London.
Barts was nearly closed in 1993, after an inquiry concluded that there were too many hospitals in Central London, an area where relatively few people actually live. The planned closure was met with fierce resistance, and ultimately Barts was kept open on the grounds that it serves the City’s daily commuting workforce of 300,000 people.
Dr. Watson, I Presume
If you find yourself in the area, be sure to stop in at the Barts Museum, which houses a well put-together historical narrative of the hospital. Here you can learn about the pioneering work on surgical procedures carried out by Percivall Pott and John Abernethy, the thrusting into the mainstream of the nursing profession by Mrs Bedford Fenwick, and the various famous alumni who have trained here. Included among the latter (sort of) is Dr. John Watson – Barts was the setting for his very first meeting with Sherlock Holmes.
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