Learning To Use Their Senses: Visitors to Voluntary Hospitals in Eighteenth‐Century E ngland

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the way in which the senses were articulated in eighteenth‐century hospital records. Touring these charities weekly, hospital governors assessed buildings using all of their senses in a way that was novel in this period. Examination of the minute books of the General Hospital in Birmingham tells us much about the way members of the eighteenth‐century public experienced their world, established sensory hierarchies and refused to touch elements in their environment, among a number of other under‐explored issues. Finally, it considers how historians might read for evidence of the senses in such contexts.

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