‘Making History’ in the Wellcome Library

The BBC Radio 4 series Making History investigates issues about the past, raised by questions from the programme’s listeners.

Saint Thomas’s Hospital, Lambeth: exterior seen from across the Thames. Photograph. (Wellcome Library no. 35782i)

This week’s episode (now available for listeners in the UK on the Radio 4 website) has a strong emphasis on the history of medicine.  It includes a discussion of the development of patient treatment in asylums; the introduction of public parks in British cities in the 19th century (and the health benefits thereof) and a sequence part-recorded in the Wellcome Library where presenter Dr Helen Castor and Dr Deborah Brunton (Open University), investigate the history of Fever Hospitals.

Before retreating to the warmth of the Library, Drs Castor and Brunton brave the chills of wintry London and look from Westminster Bridge to St Thomas’s Hospital. The historical image we’ve used here illustrates the Hospital as was and emphasises the discussion in the programme on hospital design in the 19th century.