Convento y Hospital de Refugio, Lima, Peru

Account Book, Convento y Hospital de Refugio

Manuscript Account Book, 85 leaves. September 1723 - June 1793

This 18th-century account book contains monthly totals of accounts payable and receivable for the convent and hospital, plus details of monies received from rents and benefactions (donations). Also included are records of patients (often indigent, among them present and former enslaved persons), the length of their stays, and the cost of their treatment and maintenance. Two audits from the Padre Prefecto also appear in the folio.

Officially known as the Convento y Hospital de Santa Toribio de Refugio de Incurables de la Religión Bethlehemitica de la Ciudad de Lima, “Incurables” was run by the Bethlemite order. The order was founded in the mid-seventeenth century by Pedro Betancourt, and eventually operated small hospitals in present-day Mexico and a number of Latin American countries, including Peru. Incurables served as a convalescent hospital for patients to whom other hospitals would not provide care, though Spaniards were also treated there. The brothers collected rents from land on the island of Callao, as well as rent from a house on Trinidad Street and a store (pulperia). The Sisters of Mercy took over the hospital in the mid-nineteenth century, a product of the appropriation of Church property during the independence period.