The purpose of this thesis is to examine the history of the Westmoreland Lock Hospital in the period from its foundation up to 1900. This hospital was founded for the treatment of venereal diseases among the indigent population of Dublin. For the first years of its existence the hospital admitted· both men and women for treatment, latterly admitting only women. In chapters divided according to key themes this study explores the medical issues surrounding the treatment of syphilis in Dublin and the sectarianism of the Dublin medical world which shaped the discourse surrounding sufferers of venereal disease. These issues include sanitary control and the removal of the visible manifestation of vice from the streets. The management of the hospital is critically assessed in relation to issues such as medical and religious control of patients. The success of attempts by the hospital management to forge a definitive identity for the hospital are questioned. The early development of the hospital is examined particularly the influence of reports which forced a change in the governing body decreeing that men should no longer benefit from its medical care. The period 1820 to 1900 consolidated the hospital as a female only establishment. As the state began to withdraw its funding the function of the hospital had to be redefined to make it relevant in a changing society. That this was undermined by the impact of the government response to venereal infection among its troops is demonstrated by juxtaposing an analysis of the Irish Contagious Diseases hospitals with the Dublin hospital. This study argues that the Contagious Diseases Acts left a profound legacy in attitude to patients of the Westmoreland Lock hospital causing anyone who could be accommodated in another hospital to do so and that medical breakthroughs in the early twentieth century completed the decline in the hospital population.