Royal Brompton Hospital

Royal Brompton Hospital is the largest specialist heart and lung centre in the United Kingdom (UK).

The hospital is part of Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust is a national and international specialist heart and lung centre based in Chelsea, London and Harefield, Middlesex. The Trust helps patients from all age groups who have heart and lung problems and is the country's largest centre for the treatment of adult congenital heart disease.

Consumption in the 19th Century

In the 19th century, consumption was a common word for tuberculosis. At the time consumptive patients were turned away from other hospitals as there was no known cure. Hospitals that dealt with such infectious diseases later came to be known as sanatoriums. The prospectus for the Hospital stated that for the last 6 months of 1837 out 148,701 deaths from all causes, 27,754 were from consumption.

The beginning

The hospital was founded in the 1840s by Philip Rose, the first meeting to establish the Hospital was on 8 March 1841. It was to be known as The Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest. It amalgamated on 25 May 1841 with The West London Dispensary for Diseases of the Chest, which was based at 83 Wells Street, near Oxford Street. Little is now known about the Dispensary. On 28 March 1842, an out-patients branch of the hospital was opened at 20 Great Marlborough Street. Later that year they acquired a lease on their first building for in-patients...
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