Focusing on St. Mary's hospital, London's great teaching hospital and traditionally the pre-eminent site for medical education in England, E.A. Heaman traces the emergence of the modern scientific teaching hospital and the intellectual, social, and political forces shaping it. Examining the social problems connected with health and the political debates around these problems at both the local parish level and on the national stage, Heaman explains how and why hospitals like St Mary's - originally charitable institutions for the poor - began to admit middle-class patients and eventually came under a national health insurance scheme.