St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries in London is the wizarding hospital.

Founded in late 1500s or early 1600s by Mungo Bonham (FW), St. Mungo’s Hospital is the primary (and likely only) wizarding hospital in Britain. Located in an abandoned department store in London, the hospital’s Healers treat wizards for all sorts of magic-related illnesses and injuries (OP22), and in extreme circumstances has been known to treat Muggles as well (HBP1). The hospital’s logo is a wand and a bone, crossed (OP29), and donations are welcome.

The entrance to St. Mungo’s is concealed behind an abandoned red-brick London department store called Purge and Dowse Ltd. on a Muggle street. Unlike, say, the Leaky Cauldron, St. Mungo’s is visible to passing Muggles, who merely believe the sign on the front that the store is “Closed for Refurbishment.” In the front window, a dummy dressed in outdated styles serves as the gatekeeper; wizards wanting to enter do so by talking to the dummy and then walking straight through the window (OP22).

Inside, in a reception area filled with rickety wooden chairs and outdated issues of Witch Weekly, visitors are greeted by the Welcome Witch, though her demeanor (at least on busy days) is less than welcoming. This reception area seems to double as a visitors’ entrance and an emergency room waiting area, as it is often filled with wizards facing strange ailments, such as hands sprouting out of their chests or steam pouring from their mouths, and Healers clad in uniform lime green robes hurry busily through the room (OP22).

Floor Guide

Beyond the reception area, St. Mungo’s includes six floors.

Ground Floor: Artefact Accidents
(Cauldron explosion, wand-backfiring, broom crashes, etc.)

First Floor: Creature-Induced Injuries
(Bites, stings, burns, embedded spiders, etc.)

After suffering a snake bite in 1995 (OP21), Arthur Weasley stayed in the “Dangerous” Dai Llewellyn Ward for Serious Bites. This ward is small and dingy and has only one window, which lies opposite the door. It is mainly illuminated by shining crystal bubbles clustered in the middle of the ceiling (OP22). The ward is named for Dai Llewellyn, an extremely famous Quidditch player who was eaten by a Chimaera (QA7). It is unknown whether this incident was the one that led the ward to be named for him, or whether there might be some other reason.

The staff in the “Dangerous” Dai Llewellyn ward includes Hippocrates Smethwyck (Healer-in-Charge) and Augustus Pye (Trainee Healer) (OP22). Pye is interested in complementary medicine and attempted to help Arthur by using stitches on his wounds, though of course they didn’t work (OP23). There were two other patients in the ward during this visit; one was a wizard who had been bitten by a werewolf (who Lupin talked to during the Christmas visit), and the other was a witch who wouldn’t reveal what she was handling when she sustained her injuries (OP22, OP23).

Second Floor: Magical Bugs
(Contagious maladies, e.g., dragon pox, vanishing sickness, scrofungulus)

Third Floor: Potion and Plant Poisoning
(Rashes, regurgitation, uncontrollable giggling, etc.)

Fourth Floor: Spell Damage
(Unliftable jinxes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms, etc.)

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny inadvertently visited this floor on Christmas day, 1995, when they encountered Gilderoy Lockhart on the stairs and accompanied him to the Janus Thickey Ward (a.k.a. ward 49), where he was staying. There – in the long-term residents’ ward – a motherly-looking Healer oversaw patients whose brains had been permanently affected by magic. Other residents of this ward included Broderick Bode and a witch named Agnes, as well as – to the kids’ surprise – Frank and Alice Longbottom. During their visit, they ran into Neville and his grandmother, visiting Neville’s parents, and learned for the first time what had happened to them (OP23).

Fifth Floor: Visitor’s Tearoom and Hospital Shop

Staff Members, past and present

Mungo Bonham 
Founder of the hospital (FW)

Dilys Derwent
St. Mungo’s Healer, 1722-1741 (OP22)

Augustus Pye
Trainee Healer in the Dai Llewellyn Ward (OP22)

Hippocrates Smethwyck
Healer-in-Charge of Dai Llewellyn ward (OP22)

Professor Helbert Spleen
An “expert” from the hospital who helped write an advice column in the Daily Prophet (DP3)

Miriam Strout
Healer in the Janus Thickey ward, who let the fatal Devil’s Snare cutting in under her guard (OP23, OP25)

Welcome Witch
A plump blond witch who is on the Enquiries Desk (OP22)

Lancelot
Cousin of Auntie Muriel who apparently was a Healer at St. Mungo’s at the end of the nineteenth century, and reported to her that Ariana Dumbledore had never been brought in (DH8)

Medieval Healer whose portrait hangs in the stairwell – who declared to Ron as he passed that Ron had spattergroit because of his freckles (OP23)

Patients at St. Mungo’s – past and present

Agnes
Entire head covered with fur and barks occasionally; in the long-term residents’ ward (OP23)

Katie Bell
Handled a cursed opal necklace (HBP12, HBP13)

Barnabus Blenkinsop
Vanished mysteriously from the hospital, leaving only a small tin of anchovies in his bed (DP2)

Broderick Bode
Suffered spell damage from touching a prophecy sphere that didn’t have his name on it, while under the Imperius Curse (OP25)

Reg Cattermole (?)
Given a Puking Pastille, but not its remedy, by Hermione in 1997. She recommended he go to St. Mungo’s though it’s uncertain whether he actually did (DH12). Regardless, he was back at work a couple of hours later (DH13).

Herbert Chorley
Muggle Junior Minister to the Prime Minister had a bad reaction to a “poorly performed Imperius Curse,” causing him to quack like a duck (HBP1)

John Dawlish
Auror sent to the hospital after a failed attempt to bring Augusta Longbottom to Azkaban (DH29).

Gilderoy Lockhart
Suffered spell damage from an Obliviate spell that backfired (CS17, OP23)

Frank and Alice Longbottom
Permanent mental injury from sustained Cruciatus Curses (GF30, OP23)

Minerva McGonagall
Took four Stunning Spells to the chest when she tried to stop Dolores Umbridge from taking Hagrid (OP31, OP32)

Montgomery?
Young boy bitten by Fenrir Greyback. He died after reaching the hospital (HBP22)

Nymphadora Tonks
Injured during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries (OP37)

Arthur Weasley
Bitten by a giant snake (OP21, OP22)

Witches and wizards in the St. Mungo’s waiting room (OP22):

• A few perfectly normal-looking people
• A witch or wizard with an elephant trunk
• A witch or wizard with an extra hand protruding from his or her chest
• A sweaty witch whose head seemed to have turned into a teapot and was whistling and blowing steam
• A warlock who “clanged like a bell” every time he moved, vibrating his head
• A young wizard whose shoes were eating his feet
• A small girl who sprouted large wings, who was flying around, held down only by her father

Other patients in St. Mungo’s

• Wizard bitten by a werewolf, in the bed next to Arthur Weasley (OP22)
• Woman who received a bite, but wouldn’t tell the Healers what bit her; she also shared a room with Mr. Weasley (OP22)
• Witch with “a satsuma jammed up her left nostril” from a family Christmas argument (OP23)
• Five wizards involved in a broom accident
  A witch and four warlocks, all late to a Celestina Warbeck concert in Liverpool, crashed over the Mersey River and fell into the water. Their condition at the hospital was described as “wet”. (DP1)
• Purchasers of faulty wands from “Honest” Willy Wagstaff were taken to St. Mungo’s and treated for burns (DP1)
• Hit-Witches and Hit-Wizards from the Ministry of Magic – Each member of this squad gets his or her own regular bed at St. Mungo’s (DP2)
• Wizard with his head on back-to-front – In the hospital as the result of a Hallowe’en prank, and forced to stay there for many months, perhaps longer (DP4)

Donors to St. Mungo’s Hospital

Lucius Malfoy
Gave a very public “generous contribution” to the hospital, which led Cornelius Fudge to invite the Malfoy family to the top box at the 1994 Quidditch World Cup (GF8)

Harry Potter
In stark contrast to Lucius Malfoy’s donation, Harry also donated a significant amount of money – well over ten Galleons, at least – by dumping his money anonymously into the Fountain of Magical Brethren at the Ministry of Magic, the proceeds from which were donated to the hospital (OP7, OP9)

Celestina Warbeck
Recorded the Puddlemere United team anthem, “Beat Back Those Bludgers, Boys, and Chuck That Quaffle Here,” and sold copies as a fundraiser for the hospital (QA7).

• donation by Lucius Malfoy got him Top Box seats at the World Cup (GF8)
• Neville’s parents are there (GF30, OP23)
• “complementary medicine” – using Muggle techniques, such as when Augustus Pye, the Trainee Healer, thought that stitches might do the trick with Arthur’s snake bite. Molly was not impressed (OP23).
• Lockhart is there (OP23)
• any coins dropped in the Fountain of Magical Brethren in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic are donated to St. Mungo’s.
• The hospital was founded by Mungo Bonham in the late 1500s/early 1600s (FW)
• they apparently offer a course of Shock Spells to treat mental disorders (OP26)
• patients with permanent spell damage are given “intensive remedial potions and charms” and can sometimes show some improvement (OP23)