Friends of the foundlings

摘要

In the days before Great Ormond Street Hospital had even been thought of, a great institution stood in the fields due north of where that world-famous London hospital now stands. It was a different sort of hospital to those we know: "hospital" in the old-fashioned sense of a place offering hospitality. The London Foundling Hospital, which was established in 1739, took into its care abandoned children in the days before contraception and abortion relieved the desperation of forsaken, sick, or destitute mothers.