St. Mark's Hospital
| St Mark's Hospital | |
|---|---|
| North West London Hospitals NHS Trust | |
| Geography | |
| Location | Brent, Greater London, England, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Organisation | |
| Care system | Public NHS |
| Hospital type | Specialist |
| Affiliated university | Imperial College London |
| Services | |
| Emergency department | No Accident & Emergency |
| Beds | <40 |
| Speciality | Intestinal and Colorectal medicine |
| History | |
| Founded | 1835 |
| Links | |
| Website | http://www.stmarkshospital.org.uk/ |
| Lists | Hospitals in England |
St. Mark's Hospital (informally St. Mark's) is a hospital located near Harrow in northwest London, England. It is in the northwest corner of the London Borough of Brent, adjacent with the boundary of the London Borough of Harrow. It is the only hospital in the world to specialise entirely in intestinal and colorectal medicine and is a national and international referral centre for intestinal and colorectal disorders. It is the only hospital in the UK, and one of only 14 worldwide, to be recognised as a centre of excellence by the World Organisation of Digestive Endoscopy.
Northwick Park Hospital is located at the same site. St. Mark's is closely associated with Imperial College London and is a major centre for teaching and research.
The beginnings of St Mark's Hospital were in a small room at No 11 Aldersgate Street where, in 1835, Frederick Salmon opened 'The Infirmary for the Relief of the Poor afflicted with Fistula and other Diseases of the Rectum'. There were just seven beds and in the first year 131 patients were admitted. Frederick Salmon was born in Bath in 1796 and served his apprenticeship in medicine there. He qualified at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1817 and subsequently became a house-surgeon. In 1827, he was elected to a Surgeon's post at the Aldersgate Street Dispensary. However, Salmon resigned five years later, along with the rest of the medical staff, because of a dispute with the Management Committee about the method of choosing new staff. Tired of the restrictions of working within the establishment, Salmon decided to found his own institution to provide treatment for those conditions which were regarded as 'the most distressing that can afflict our common nature'. So the 'Fistula Infirmary', as it came to be known, was started. Much of the financial support came from the City of London. The Lord Mayor, William Taylor Copeland, was a grateful patient of Salmon's and became the first President. Another benefactor was Charles Dickens, who blamed his need for Salmon's surgical attentions on 'too much sitting at my desk'! There was an overwhelming need for such an institution giving specialist treatment free of charge to London's poor. Therefore, in 1838, when the number of patients had trebled, Salmon moved to larger premises at 38 Charterhouse Square, where there were fourteen beds and more space for treating out-patients. Thirteen years later, a site in City Road was purchased from the Dyers' Company and the almshouses that occupied it were converted to a 25-bed hospital. This was opened on St Mark's Day, 25 April 1854, and took the name of St Mark's Hospital for Fistula and other Diseases of the Rectum. The staff consisted of a surgeon, a Matron, a dispenser, nurses and servants. St Mark's was unique in not employing a physician until 1948, with the arrival of Francis Avery-Jones, “the father of British gastroenterology” and pioneer of medical treatment of peptic ulcer. In 1859, Frederick Salmon resigned from his post as Surgeon. He is said to have performed 3,500 operations without a single fatality, a remarkable feat in an age when anaesthetics were only just beginning to be used and antiseptics were unknown. The Governors commissioned a portrait of him which is now displayed outside of the ward that bears his name.
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