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[Illustration: THE CENTRE OF LONDON IN 1658, REPRODUCED FROM NEWCOURT’S
MAP.

  [_Frontispiece._
]




  LONDON

  (Ancient and Modern)

  _From the Sanitary and Medical
  Point of View._


  BY
  G. V. POORE, M.D., F.R.C.P.


  CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
  _London, Paris, New York & Melbourne_.
  1889.




PREFACE.


This little book is an expansion of two addresses delivered in January,
1889.

One of these addresses, which deals with the Sanitary Aspects of
Ancient and Modern London, was given in the Parkes Museum of the
Sanitary Institute, and was written for a mixed audience. The other
formed the subject of the annual address to the Students’ Medical
Society at University College, London, and was written for an audience
which might be expected to have a special interest in the History of
Medicine in London.

Both have already appeared in print; the first in _Public Health_, the
journal of the Society of Medical Officers of Health; and the second
in the _Lancet_. For the loan of most of the woodcuts the author is
indebted to the Publishers of the _Lancet_, who kindly undertook, when
the lecture was appearing in their columns, to illustrate it with
five illustrations, which were made especially for the purpose. One
illustration has been supplied by the proprietors of _Public Health_,
and four have been borrowed from “Cassell’s Old and New London.”




CONTENTS.


                               CHAPTER I.

  LONDON FROM THE SANITARY POINT OF VIEW.

                                                                    PAGE
  SITUATION                                                            7

  WATER SUPPLY                                                        10

  MEDIÆVAL LONDON                                                     16

  GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS                                        18

  HEALTH OF OLD LONDON                                                24

  THE LONDON “DEATH RATE”                                             31

  IMPROVED CONDITION OF MODERN LONDON                                 34

  WHAT IS THE OUTLOOK?                                                36

  ANNUAL DEATH-RATE PER 100,000 LIVING OF CHILDREN UNDER 5 YEARS
      OF AGE FROM WHOOPING-COUGH AND MEASLES DURING THE 10 YEARS
      1871-80                                                         41

  THE LOOSE END OF OUR SANITATION                                     44


                              CHAPTER II.

  LONDON FROM THE MEDICAL POINT OF VIEW.

  CHAUCER’S DOCTOR                                                    50

  EARLIEST LONDON PRACTITIONERS                                       53

  THE SEVERANCE OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY                               56

  THE EARLIEST MEDICAL ACT                                            59

  THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS                                           60

  THE PLAGUE                                                          72

  SECRET REMEDIES                                                     86

  THE CRUSADE AGAINST QUACKERY                                        89

  MEDICINE IN THE DAYS OF PEPYS                                       92

  THE BARBER-SURGEONS                                                 95

  THE FIRST ANATOMY LECTURES                                          97

  THE APOTHECARIES                                                   101

  THE ROYAL SOCIETY                                                  101

  GRESHAM COLLEGE                                                    103

  THE EARLIEST HOSPITALS                                             106

  THE ROYAL HOSPITALS                                                110

  EARLY HOSPITAL PRACTICE                                            112

  THE PHARMACOPŒIAS                                                  117

  THE RISE OF THE MEDICAL SCHOOLS                                    119

  HOSPITALS BUILT BY PUBLIC BENEVOLENCE                              120

  MODERN MEDICAL SCHOOLS AND EXAMINATIONS                            123

  LONDON AS A PLACE OF STUDY                                         127




LONDON

(_Ancient and Modern_)

From the Sanitary and Medical Point of View.




CHAPTER I.

LONDON FROM THE SANITARY POINT OF VIEW.


In considering the sanitary conditions of a great city like London, it
behoves us to remember that it has been a place of importance since the
days of the Roman occupation of this country--that is, for some 1,500
years.

A place that has been peopled for centuries is very apt, in the absence
of special precautions, to become unwholesome by reason of the vast
accumulation of refuse. Roman London is many yards beneath the surface
of the present City. It has been deeply buried, and by what? By refuse
and debris from every source; and this in itself is necessarily a
danger to health, and doubtless has in times past greatly tended to
produce many of those diseases for which mediæval (and even modern)
London was noted.


SITUATION.

The situation of ancient London was most convenient for commerce,
and fairly good from a sanitary point of view. The advantages of its
situation have been dwelt upon by many writers, and were well summed up
by Edward Chamberlayne, who thus speaks of it in his “Present State
of England” (1682), a work which was analogous in many respects to the
“Whitaker’s Almanack” of the present day.

Chamberlayne says:--“In the most excellent situation of London the
profound wisdom