History
It was founded in 1746 in Windmill Street to treat smallpox patients and carry out research into treatments for the disease (Geoffrey Rivett, The Development of the London Hospital System 1823–1982, 1986)
It was incorporated into the Whittington Hospital in the twentieth century and is now part of the Whittington Hospital NHS Trust
It works closely with UCL’s medical school; UCL’s Centre for Health Informatics and Multiprofessional Education is based there
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What was reforming about it?
It provided free inoculations for the poor; in the 1750s it had been the only institution in London to do this, followed by the Foundling Hospital in the 1760s (Andrea A. Rusnock, Vital Accounts: Quantifying Health and Population in Eighteenth-Century England and France, 2002)
In the early nineteenth century it played an important part in the development of vaccination as a replacement for inoculation (Nick Black, Walking London’s Medical History, 2006)
Where in Bloomsbury
In 1767 it moved to a location on the edge of Bloomsbury, near the modern-day location of King’s Cross railway station (Nick Black, Walking London’s Medical History, 2006)
The building of the railway station forced it to move further north (to Highgate Hill) in 1848
Website of current institution
The successor institution is the Whittington Hospital, (opens in new window)
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Books about it
Its development is discussed in Genevieve Miller, The Adoption of Inoculation for Smallpox in England and France (1957), and Andrea A. Rusnock, Vital Accounts: Quantifying Health and Population in Eighteenth-Century England and France (2002)
Archives
Its records are held in London Metropolitan Archives, ref. H/NW/1/SP; details are available online via (opens in new window)
Other related twentieth-century records are also held in London Metropolitan Archives, ref. HLB/MXJ; details are available online via (opens in new window)
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