Hospitalism: Victorian ‘Hospitalism’
Sarah Perry, 5 July 2018
Even the worst corner of the worst slum couldn’t compete with hospital wards and dissection rooms for filth. Sparrows squabbled over morsels of lung; a rat gnawed at a vertebra. Surgeons took pride in aprons so dirty they could have stood up on their own; one stored his instruments up his sleeve between surgeries to keep them warm. This was the Grand Guignol stage on which Joseph Lister took his place.