| Biography | The West End Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System, Paralysis and Epilepsy opened at 73 Welbeck Street in 1878. Dr. Herbert Tibbits, its founder, was one of many who advocated the use of electricity as a treatment for conditions of the nervous system. By the 1880s medical electrical departments had even become common in general hospitals. Electrical engineers invented various ways of generating electricity of various kinds -- electrostatic, DC, low and high frequency AC - and by the end of the 19th century many devices were available. Pulvermacher chains were popular and, later, Cornelius Bennett Harness' electropathic belts and corsets.
In 1915 the Hospital changed its name to the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases. In 1918 a speech therapy clinic was established, which concentrated on treatment for stammering (the first school of speech therapy was later founded at the Hospital in 1929).
In 1919 the building at 73 Welbeck Street became the Out-Patients Department while the in-patients moved to the vacated St Katharine's Lodge - the former Master's House of St Katharine's Hospitalin Regent's Park. The Lodge had been refurbished and contained 75 beds with some single-bed wards, a modern operating theatre, an X-ray department and electrotherapy treatment rooms. Additions included a Pathology Department, a Post-Mortem room and a mortuary chapel, with statues of guardian angels on either side of the altar. The Hospital was also equipped for 'sun treatment'.
During WW2 the building was severely damaged by bombing and the in-patients were transferred to temporary wards at St Charles Hospital, where 60 beds were made available.
In 1955 the Out-Patients Department in Welbeck Street moved to the former Lock Hospital building in Dean Street, Soho. The Hospital was renamed the West End Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery; it had 36 beds.
It finally closed in 1972. |