ABSTRACT
In the 18th century, few if any people could lay claim to have first hand knowledge of hospitals and poor houses across Europe. The English Enlightenment philanthropist John Howard was undoubtedly unique in acquiring such knowledge and in publishing on the subject. However, John Howard's travels to southern Europe in particular, inquiring into the social and medical welfare provisions in these countries, proved as much a spiritual journey as a physical and intellectual undertaking. Furthermore, the fact that John Howard's interest in welfare institutions across Europe is so clearly signposted in the titles of his two published works makes this even more startling. It is noteworthy, as has been recently pointed out by James Riley, that this agenda on the part of a considerable number of physicians across Europe corresponded neatly with that of the philosophes of the Enlightenment who sought to bring about the reform of man and nature.
