Maternity Care

The Rotunda Hospital

Dr Bartholomew Mosse (1712-59), was a surgeon and midwife born in Maryborough (now Portlaoise). He trained abroad, and returned determined to establish a lying-in and teaching hospital to treat Dublin women, rich and poor. His hospital opened in a small premises on South Great George's Street, which it quickly outgrew, so Mosse began campaigning for a larger premises: running lotteries (for which he was arrested), seeking donations, and holding fund-raising events (his fund benefited from the charity premiere of Handel's Messiah). In 1757 his New Lying-in Hospital, as it was called, opened in fine purpose-built premises, popularly known as the Rotunda, on account of its tower and cupola. Sadly, Mosse died two years later, penniless and exhausted. The new hospital, designed by architect Richard Cassells, had a pleasure garden, theatre and concert hall where the fundraising continued, to enable the hospital to treat poor women for free. The Rotunda had an international reputation for its midwifery training and attracted students from Britain, Europe, Russia and North America.

Image: © Rotunda Hospital
The Rotunda Hospital
Image: © Rotunda Hospital

The Rotunda Hospital

Dr Bartholomew Mosse (1712-59), was a surgeon and midwife born in Maryborough (now Portlaoise). He trained abroad, and returned determined to establish a lying-in and teaching hospital to treat Dublin women, rich and poor. His hospital opened in a small premises on South Great George's Street, which it quickly outgrew, so Mosse began campaigning for a larger premises: running lotteries (for which he was arrested), seeking donations, and holding fund-raising events (his fund benefited from the charity premiere of Handel's Messiah). In 1757 his New Lying-in Hospital, as it was called, opened in fine purpose-built premises, popularly known as the Rotunda, on account of its tower and cupola. Sadly, Mosse died two years later, penniless and exhausted. The new hospital, designed by architect Richard Cassells, had a pleasure garden, theatre and concert hall where the fundraising continued, to enable the hospital to treat poor women for free. The Rotunda had an international reputation for its midwifery training and attracted students from Britain, Europe, Russia and North America.

Image: © Rotunda Hospital
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The world's oldest-surviving maternity hospital is Dublin's Rotunda, founded in 1745 by Dr Bartholomew Mosse. The hospital quickly established an international reputation for training and for success in reducing deaths from childbirth fever.

Doctors working there in the 1790s and early 1800s, notably Joseph Clark and his Scottish son-in-law Robert Collins, were among the first to realise that hygiene was important. Wards were disinfected after use, straw from used mattresses was burned, staff had to wash their hands before seeing a patient, and women with a contagious disease stayed in isolation units.

One of the Rotunda's 20th-century innovators was Robert Collis who developed the technique of feeding premature infants via a tube through the nose - before that, they were spoon fed, which was rarely successful.

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