Though a visit to a modern infirmary calls forth in us, doubtless, passing thoughts of admiration for the buildings and the arrangements, what draws most of us thither is the bond of brotherhood. It is the inmates of the wards who are to us the centre of attraction. Looking upon the sufferers, we desire to know their circumstances, their complaints, their chance of cure. Nor is it otherwise in studying the history of ancient institutions. The mere site of an old hospital may become a place of real interest when we know something of those who once dwelt there, when we _see_ the wayworn pilgrim knocking at the gate, the infirm man bent with age, the paralysed bedridden woman, and the stricken leper in his sombre gown, and realize what our forefathers strove to do in the service of others. In many cases the link between the first founder and first inmate was very close, being the outcome of personal relations between master and servant, feudal lord and tenant. It was so in the case of Orm, the earliest hospital inmate whose name has been handed down to us. [p092] This Yorkshireman, who lived near Whitby eight hundred years ago, “was a good man and a just, but he was a leper.” The abbot, therefore, having pity on him, founded a little asylum, in which Orm spent the rest of his days, receiving from the abbey his portion of food and drink. In the same way Hugh Kevelioc, Earl of Chester, built a retreat outside Coventry for William de Anney, a knight of his household, which was the origin of Spon hospital for the maintenance of such lepers as should happen to be in the town. (i) PERSONS MIRACULOUSLY CURED