ABSTRACT
In 1751, a correspondent writing under the pseudonym ‘Milonicus’ wrote to the Royal Magazine with a proposal designed to rid the nation of the ‘scandal’ of having ‘such a number of idle hands preying upon its vitals’. In order to address the social, moral, and medical problems posed by a rising population of labouring poor, ‘Milonicus’ proposed dividing the begging classes into three groups: the blind, the ‘lame’, and ‘the strong and healthy, tho’ lazy’. Whereas workhouses, he argued, were the most efficacious manner of instilling the discipline of labour in the latter group, the first two ought to be treated in specialist medical institutions aimed at restoring them to a state of productivity. Alongside county infirmaries catering for the ‘sick and lame’, a national hospital ought to be built on Hounslow Heath for ‘those who are born blind, have been struck blind, or through infirmity, and age, are become blind’. The proposed institution should be built in a square design of a width adequate to house ‘two rows of wards’, surrounding a central courtyard in the middle of which should be ‘erected a plain chapel fit to receive about 500 people’. The estimated £20,000 needed to establish this institution was to be raised by voluntary subscription of the gentry and, if properly funded, it was hoped that the hospital could cater for ‘the reception of 1000 necessitous blind’. 1
