It was 250 years yesterday that the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford’s former major hospital, opened.
But as its first beds were occupied on October 18, 1770, not every patient could expect to be treated.
People with infectious diseases, epilepsy, ulcers and incurable illnesses were not admitted.
Nor were prostitutes and those with venereal disease because of the effect they would have on ‘virtuous’ patients.
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Pregnant women were also barred, although one patient managed to disguise her condition when she was admitted in 1778.
The children's ward in 1970
After she died, staff found the body of a baby girl born 11 days earlier in a box under her bed.
Mattresses were filled with straw until the 1880s and sheets were changed just once a month.
Each ward had a single nurse who lived in a room off it. Until the 1880s, nurses were allowed a pint of beer a day they could enjoy in a grand sitting room.
Patients were not so lucky - even a bowl of fruit given by a visitor was frowned upon.
Oxford Rugby Club donated children's presents in 1970
A porter got into serious trouble in the 1840s after being persuaded to smuggle in apples to a patient unimpressed with the hospital diet of gruel, boiled mutton, broth and bread and cheese.
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Another activity frowned upon was reading a novel. The Bible was the only acceptable book and patients who failed to attend hospital chapel services ran the risk of being refused future treatment.
The hospital, sandwiched between Woodstock Road and Walton Street, was named after John Radcliffe, who graduated from Oxford University as a doctor of medicine in 1682, at the age of 30.
He became physician to three monarchs, Mary II, William II and Queen Anne. He reputedly once told Queen Anne that she was suffering nothing more than ‘imaginitis’.
Volunteers serving refreshments handed the work to the League of Friends in 1983
After Radcliffe’s death in 1714, his £140,000 estate was divided between University College and his trustees, who used the money to build the Radcliffe Infirmary, the adjoining Radcliffe Observatory and the Radcliffe Camera in Radcliffe Square off Catte Street.
Staff dressed as doctors and nurses from the past celebrated the 225th anniversary in 1995.
Giant banners were hoisted outside, old photographs were on display on the long corridors, all 1,300 staff received a memento and a thanksgiving service was held in the chapel.
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The Infirmary, which was built on five acres of land at a time when the city’s population was just 8,000, closed in 2007, with services transferred to the John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals at Headington, ensuring that the legacy of Dr John Radcliffe lives on.
In June a plaque was erected to honour hundreds of doctors and nurses at the infirmary.
The tribute was the result of a decade of work by three former NHS workers in Oxford, Xante Cummings, Thelma Sanders and Dr Peggy Frith.
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