The Institution for the Cure and Prevention of Contagious Fevers London Fever Hospital Royal Free Hospital, Liverpool Road Branch

The Institution for the Cure and Prevention of Contagious Fevers London Fever Hospital Royal Free Hospital, Liverpool Road Branch

The London Fever Hospital (LFH) was founded in 1802 at 2 Constitution Row, Gray's Inn Lane, just north of Guilford Street, under the official title of The Institution for the Cure and Prevention of Contagious Fevers. It had 15 beds, and was staffed by three nurses, a medical officer, an apothecary and a porter. Typhus was the main disease treated, but smallpox and scarlet fever were also prominent. The Hospital admitted 550 patients in its first two years, and also cleaned and fumigated their homes. In 1815 the Hospital moved to take over a parochial smallpox hospital on the site of what is now King's Cross station. At that time it had 60 beds, and 60 more were added later. By 1842 the hospital was admitting about 1500 patients a year with typhus and malignant scarlet fever. The fee for treatment was £2 2s, unless the patient had a subscriber's letter, in which case it was free. Admission was restricted to servants and the 'decent poor', paupers were sent to the workhouses and houses of recovery. The wealthier patients were nursed in their own homes. In 1849 the hospital moved once more, to its permanent site, a 200 bed building with over four acres of land in Liverpool Road, Islington. A succession of well known physicians were on the staff, including Sir William Jenner, who was assistant physician from 1855-1861 and the epidemiologist, Charles Murchison was successively assistant physician, physician and consulting physician from 1856-1879.

In the twentieth century, as many of the infectious diseases of the past began to pose less of a threat to public health, the LFH took on more of the work of a general hospital. By 1938 the isolation block was no longer required and was replaced by a private wing, raising the number of beds to 209. During World War Two beds at the LFH were allocated for casualties from hospitals that had been damaged in air raids. The Royal Free Hospital was allocated 100, and the City of London Maternity Hospital was given 30. In 1948 the LFH joined the Royal Free Group and became the Royal Free Hospital, Liverpool Road Branch. It contained 130 beds for general cases, though the wards were actually used for obstetric, gynaecological and pediatric cases, apart from 23 additional beds in the private wing. In order to perpetuate the name of the LFH, the remainder of the hospital's funds, about £10,000 was used to establish the London Fever Hospital Research Fund, used specifically for research into the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. The Liverpool Road site was closed in 1974, but the Royal Free still has a Liverpool Road Division, on the Pond Street site, specialising in women and childrens' services.