A public dispensary , charitable dispensary or free dispensary gives advice and medicines free-of-charge, or for a small charge.
6-618: The Finsbury Dispensary , more fully the Finsbury Dispensary for Administering Advice and Medicines to the Poor, was a charitable dispensary giving medical treatment to poor people in Finsbury , on the edge of the City of London . It was founded in 1780 by a Quaker , one George Friend. It operated from various premises during its existence in the 19th century, notably, between 1819 and 1838 it occupied
12-549: A large, well-appointed house in St. John's Street , where it was sometimes called the New Finsbury Dispensary . A number of well-known surgeons and physicians worked at the Finsbury Dispensary. These include; Charitable dispensary In the 19th and early 20th centuries a provident dispensary was a clinic offering medical care to people who made a small weekly payment as a kind of medical insurance. In England, from
18-588: The Medical Relief of the Poor, founded in 1786, is considered to be the first public dispensary in the United States. According to a historian of health services "During the nineteenth century access to healthcare was class based" . Dispensaries were funded by voluntary subscriptions. Subscribers would "recommend" local people to be treated by the dispensary. In the main the medical practitioners engaged by dispensaries offered their services for free. One of
24-408: The earlier English cities to have a provident dispensary was Coventry (dispensary opened in 1830) where, in the 1840s, members subscribed one penny a week for adults and a halfpenny a week for each of their children. This was seen as a suitable arrangement for working-class people who wanted to be provident and self-reliant, avoiding charitable treatment offered to 'paupers', but with no hope of paying
30-519: The fees charged to wealthier people. A provident dispensary needed a few hundred 'club' members to pay for one doctor. Some dispensaries had extra funding from philanthropists, and some arranged for hospital specialists to see dispensary patients at reduced fees. Doctors at a few provident dispensaries, in London for example, would visit patients at home. A provident dispensary was opened in Buffalo, New York in
36-526: The later 18th Century onwards, there was a growth in Medical Philanthropy. This saw the establishment of voluntary hospitals offering in-patient and dispensaries offering out-patient treatment. By 1800 dispensaries dealt with at least 10,000 admissions per year. There are competing claims to where the first dispensary was founded but it is clear that dispensaries began being established in numbers from 1770 onwards. The Philadelphia Dispensary for
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