If you do a search on "Victorian hospitals," you'll find endless results declaring that they were little more than "gateways to death," places of horror and despair from which a patient would need a veritable miracle to escape, let alone recover. Other articles declare that hospital care (and health care in general) was available only to the wealthy. Yet many Victorian-era articles tell a different story. Many resources were indeed available for those without funds, and patients write of the dedicated care they received from hospital staff. A "visit" to a hospital was often a lengthy affair; one writer describes a ten-week stay. Perhaps it's well to remember that from the Victorian perspective, a Victorian hospital was surely an improvement on what went before -- even if by today's standards they might seem a bit less salubrious.

A Visit to Greenwich Hospital (Illustrated London Almanack, 1855)

St. Matthew's Day at Christ's Hospital (Illustrated London Almanack, 1855)

Christ's Hospital (Cassell's Family Paper, 1859)

My Attendance at the Brompton Hospital (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1878)

A patient's experiences at a famous hospital for consumptives.

The New Order of St. Katherine (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1879)

A history of London's Hospital of St. Katherine.

My Experiences of Hospital Children (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1881)

A Sketch of the Children's Incurable Hospital, by Rosa Carey (Girl's Own Paper, 1882)

Stories of the "Little Folks" Cots, by Anna Beale (Little Folks, 1883)

Beds sponsored by Little Folks Magazine at the East London Hospital for Children.

Christmas in the New Hospital for Women, by S.F.A. Caulfeild (Girl's Own Paper, 1884)

How Christmas is celebrated in the wards of a London women's hospital.

Hospitals and the Benefits They Confer, by Emma Brewer (Girl's Own Paper, 1887)

The Mary Wardell Convalescent Home for Scarlet Fever, by Anne Beale (Girl's Own Paper, 1889)

Christmas Day in a London Hospital (Girl's Own Paper, 1890)

At the Children's Hospital (The Strand, 1891A)

Hospital Days and Hospital Ways, by Augusta E. Mansford (The Strand, 1895A)

A ten-week stay at a London hospital makes for interesting reading - not least because the physican makes his rounds with his terrier, Peter!

Hospital Sketches (Girl's Own Paper, 1898)

Discover how patients enjoyed "Christmas in the wards"!