Figure 1.--This is the afternoon sunshine perriod at the Natiional Children's Homes (NCH) at Harpenden in Essex.

Until the 19th century, there were no facilities dedicated to the care of sick children in England. When they could not be cared for at home, children, like their parents, went to poorshouses. Orphaned or abandoned babies commonly were cared for in infant asylums. Mortality rates at these instiutions were extrodinarily high. We begin to see the founding of special hospitals for children. Often general hospitals refused to admot sick children. The first pediatric hospitals were founded by relgious groups, not the state. These facilities commonly admitted indigent or abandoned children, mostly very young children. Some of whom, but by no means all, were also ill. Oher health facilities appeared. One of the most impoetant was sanatoria. This was an instutution primarily dealing with the increasing problem of tuberulosis, in part because of the conditions of the urban poor in the growing industrial cities. There were private sanatoria for the affluent. Religious groups by the turn-of-the 20th century were opening charity facilies for poor children. One of themost important was the sanatoria opened by the Methodist founded National Children's Homes (NCH). Sanatorium is a term generally associated with a medical facility for long-term illness, promsrilly the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) in the late-19th century and erly-20th century before the discovery of antibiotics. In Britain we sometimes see the term used for facilities deling with mental disabilities.

Created: 6:44 AM 9/14/2020
Last updated: 6:44 AM 9/14/2020