An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

DICKENS, Charles John Huffam

3 entries
  • 12047

A curious dance round a curious tree.

Household Words, 4, 385-389, 1852.

Dickens' account of his visit on the day after Christmas, 1851 to the wards at St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, founded in 1751 to provide free care to the impoverished and incurable mentally ill.

"The inhabitants of St. Luke’s largely sit in solitude. Dickens decries the absence of "domestic articles to occupy . . . the mind" in one gallery holding several silent, melancholy women, and praises the comfortable furnishings--and the relative "earnestness and diligence" of the inmates--in another. He uses statistics to show the prevalence of female patients, "the general efficacy of the treatment" at St. Luke’s, and the unhealthy weight gain of the inhabitants due to inactivity. Dickens describes the behavior of various distinctive inhabitants during the usual fortnightly dance, the viewing of a Christmas tree, and the distribution of presents" (http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/12156).

Digital edition from Dickens Journals Online at this link.

This brief work was reprinted by St. Luke's Hospital and published as a separate pamphlet, London, 1860, as a means of solicting donations.



Subjects: HOSPITALS, LITERATURE / Philosophy & Medicine & Biology, PSYCHIATRY
  • 12065

Speech of Charles Dickens, Esq., on behalf of The Hospital for Sick Children, 49, Great Ormond Street. Patron, - Her Majesty the Queen. The objects of the institution are - I. The medical and surgical treatment of poor children. II. The attainment and diffusion of knowledge regarding the diseases of children. 3. The training of nurses for children.

London: Printed by Folkard and Sons, 1858.

Speech of Charles Dickens as Chairman at the Dinner on Behalf of the Hospital for Sick Children, February 9th, 1858. This 10-page pamphlet was first published in 1858 and reprinted in 1864, in 1865, and in 1874 to raise money for the hospital. Digital facsimile of the 1874 printing from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: HOSPITALS, LITERATURE / Philosophy & Medicine & Biology
  • 12066

Dickens and medicine: An exhibition of books, manuscripts and prints to mark the centenary of his death; with an introduction and bibliography.

London: The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1970.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographies of Specific Subjects, LITERATURE / Philosophy & Medicine & Biology