297 1,,firwry Strert.1 1NFIRMARY SUGGESTED.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE OLD ROYAL INFIRMARY-SURGEON SQUARE.
The Old Royal Infirmary-Projected in time of Gorge I.-The First Hospital Opened-The Royal Charter-Second Hospital Built-
Opened 1741-Sizc and Constitution-Benefactors? Patients-Struck by Lightning-Chaplain?s Dutier--Cases in the Present Day-The
Keith Fund-Notabilities of Surgeon Squan-The H o w of CumehiU-The Hall of the Royal and Medical Society-Its Foundation-
Bell?s Surgical Theatre.
THOUGH the ancient Scottish Church had been
during long ages distinguished for its tenderness
and charity towards the diseased poor, a dreary
interval of nearly two centuries, says Chambers,
intervened between the extinction of its lazar-houses
and leper-houses, and the time when a merely
civilised humanity suggested the establishment of
a regulated means for succouring the sicknessstricken
of the poor and homeless classes.
86
A pamphlet was issued in Edinburgh in 1721
suggesting the creation of such an institution, and
there seems reason to suppose that the requirements
of her rising medical schools demanded it;
but the settled gloom of the ? dark age ? subsequent
to the Union, usually stifled everything. and the
matter went to sleep till 1725, when it was revived
by a proposal to raise Az,ooo sterling to carry it
out
