Travel through time

11th-century Jerusalem
      Today in Jerusalem the St. John Ophthalmic Hospital treats thousands of people
every year. The hospital is part of a story which began over 900 years ago in that same
city when ........ 
  ..... growing numbers of Christians were making the long and difficult pilgrimage to the
Holy City of Jerusalem. Many arrived weak and ill, and to care for them, a small hospital
was set up close to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The hospital was run by monks
from the local Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary.
    Holy for Christians, Jews and Muslims, Jerusalem has been fought over many times. In
1099 the armies of the First Crusade captured the city from its Muslim rulers and
established a Christian kingdom. This encouraged more pilgrims to make the journey,
and as their work became better known, the brothers of the hospital received gifts of
money and land. Increasingly wealthy, and with their special nursing role, the brothers
moved away from their Benedictine origins. This was accepted by the Pope and the new
Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem was confirmed in 1113. Hospitallers, both
brothers and sisters, took the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and their special
task was to care for the sick.
 The Jerusalem hospital, built by the Order of St. John in the 12th
century, was one of the first great medieval hospitals and the way it
was run had a huge influence on the development of others.
In that enormous 2,000-bed hospital, the "sick poor" received
nursing care which might surprise 21st century patients.
The main Order hospital was always at its headquarters
and there were smaller ones, usually along pilgrim routes.
Each hospital was run by a knight and nursing the sick
was part of the duty of all knights. Given the crusading
warrior role of the Hospitallers, it is perhaps unexpected
that people of all religions were treated ....
.... knowing that the Lord, who calls all to salvation, does
not want 
anyone to perish, the hospital mercifully admits men of
the Muslim 
faith and Jews .....
Much of the Hospitallers' medical work in the middle ages is
unexpectedly close to trends in modern health care. They
believed the quality of nursing care was the key to recovery in
most cases, used surgery only as a last resort, had an excellent
knowledge of natural and herbal medicines and understood the
significance of hygiene, tranquility and isolation
 RHODES & mALTAAfter the loss of the Holy Land the Knights shifted their crusading
operations from land to sea and turned first Rhodes then Malta into fortified bases.
The Knights seized Rhodes in 1306, established their headquarters and hospital,
fortified the island and acquired a fleet. Their galleys prowled the shipping lanes and
raided surrounding Muslim territory. Understandably, Hospitaller Rhodes became a
target for Muslim forces and it finally fell to the young Turkish Sultan, Suleiman the
Magnificent, in 1522.
The loss of Rhodes was a blow to the Christian powers in their struggle with the Turks for control of the Mediterranean but the
Knights were soon installed on Malta. The climax of the struggle came when the less young, but still magnificent, Sultan Suleiman
led a massive attack on the island in 1565. Against all the odds, and when he was well into his 70s, Grand Master Jean de la
Valette led the knights and Maltese people to a famous victory. Valletta, built and fortified by the Knights after the Great Siege
and named after the Grand Master, is still the capital of Malta. 

Throughout their years on Rhodes and Malta the Knights' medical work continued. In
Rhodes the hospital had separate wards for infectious diseases and obstetrics. In
Malta the Order ran a kind of health service for the population and set up a famous
school of anatomy and surgery. For statistic collectors, the great ward in Malta's
hospital was the longest room in 18th - century Europe.
The Knights of Malta, as they became known, continued to rule the island until they
were driven out by Napoleon in 1798. Today, their direct descendant, the Sovereign
Military Order of Malta, is based in Rome and has returned completely to its first role
of caring for the sick.
Henry VIII Henry VIII ended centuries of Hospitaller wealth and power in England
when he seized all their property.

In the middle ages devout Christians throughout Europe gave money and property to the
Hospitallers, so they could carry out God's work.  They had so much land, that to run it
efficiently and fund their hospitals and military operations, the Order divided Europe into
25 regional priories.  The English Priory was set up on a gift of land at Clerkenwell, then
just north of London, and visitors to St. John's Gate can still see the wonderfully
evocative 12th-century crypt of its first church.The Order was a major power in medieval
England and by the 14th century was one of the greatest ecclesiastical landowners in
the country.  Priors advised the monarch and often held high government positions.  This
was not always to their advantage -  Prior Robert Hales, Treasurer of England, lost his
head during the Peasants' Revolt.
 Industrial Revolution
In the 19th Century, around 400 years after Henry VIII had ended the medieval Priory, there were moves to
revive the Order of St. John in England. Revival required the consent of the Pope, but as Anglicans as
well as Catholics were involved, it was not given. Despite this a determined group set up the British
Order of St. John to care for the sick in the Hospitaller tradition, and the suffering of workers was one of
their main concerns. 
Britain was the first country to industrialise and in the nineteenth century there were many dangerous workplaces.
Conditions and machinery were hazardous and workers were exhausted by the long hours. Accidents were
frequent but victims rarely saw a doctor in time, and death or disability from untreated injuries were
commonplace.  Members of the British Order wanted to find a way to help.  They decided to train ordinary people
in First Aid so accident victims could be treated quickly on the spot.  In 1877, they set up St. John Ambulance to
provide this emergency medical care in an organised way. 

The idea of giving people the skills to help each other proved immensely popular.  Classes were set up across
the country, particularly in workplaces and areas of heavy industry, but also in villages, seaside towns and
middle class suburbs.

The idea of giving people the skills to help each other proved immensely popular.  Classes were set up
across the country, particularly in workplaces and areas of heavy industry, but also in villages, seaside towns
and middle class suburbs.
THE AGE OF ANEMPIRE
St. John Ambulance began in the days of empire and quickly spread to Britain's overseas colonies.

The British Order of St. John has always had strong royal connections.  Indeed it was Queen Victoria who, in 1888, made it a
Royal Order of Chivalry and became its Sovereign Head.  Victoria ruled the largest empire the world has ever known and the
Order saw it as part of its role to spread western medical practice in the colonies.  A branch of St. John Ambulance was also
seen as a way of encouraging local people to learn British "values and virtues”: whether in India, Hong Kong or Australia, it
was like a little bit of Britain.

But the first aid message was to prove more permanent than the empire. As in Britain, St. John
Ambulance classes often developed in workplaces; on the railways; among police; at the docks.  They
also took root in diverse cultures because manuals were printed in local languages and aimed at
particular communities. So, where St. John Ambulance met local needs it stayed on after the British left,
and today it is active in over 40 countries across the world.
 In wartime, St. John and the Red Cross worked together to meet a huge range of medical and welfare
needs.    
During the Crimean War in the 1850s, newspapers began to carry graphic reports of the battlefield carnage. The
public was confronted with the harsh reality that wounded soldiers were left to suffer and die, and the
International Red Cross Movement grew out of the resulting outrage.  Volunteer members of the British Order of
St. John responded and took great personal risks to bring First Aid and ambulance transport to battlefields in
Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The original purpose of First Aid was to help wounded soldiers, and from the outset, St. John Ambulance aimed
to provide trained reserves for Army hospitals. Its first official role was in the Boer War, 1899-1902, when nearly a
quarter of the Army Medical Service in South Africa were St. John reserves.

In World War One, 1914-18, new technologies brought slaughter on a previously unknown scale.  Aircraft,
tanks, gas and machine guns changed the nature of battlefields and far greater numbers of men were
needed to fight. This meant almost everyone in Britain personally knew a soldier  and there was a huge
response to appeals for volunteers to help care for the wounded and dying.  An extensive system of
medical services and hospitals was put in place, at the front, behind the lines and back in Britain, and
much of it was run by the Joint War Committee of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John.
In World War Two, 1939-45, civilians as well as fighting forces were targeted, particularly from the air. 
Again, St. John and the Red Cross worked together to meet wartime medical and welfare needs, on the
home front and overseas.  St. John’s roles included; organising the national anti-gas training programme;
running first aid posts in London’s tube stations during the Blitz; assisting prisoners of war; providing
medical reserves and volunteer nurses to serve with the forces, and many more.

As recently as in the Gulf War of 1991, St. John welfare workers