On provident dispensaries as a means for promoting the public health / by James Christie.

  • Christie, James, 1829-1892.
Date:
[1880?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On provident dispensaries as a means for promoting the public health / by James Christie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    payment of their just debts; they come also from the ranks of tlie immoi-al and the vicious; while a vast number belong, 1 doubt not, to the labouring class, whose income cannot supply them with more than the bare necessities of life. Dr. Kussell recommends the extension of our charities for the benefit of this class, while I recommend, in addition, the estab- lisiiment of Provident Dispensaries; but, after all, we are agreed that exti-aneous aid is necessary. There are, doubtless, a vast number of individuals who are, in virtue of their social position, living on the borderlaiul of pauperisnj. A man with a wife and family, whose wage does not average moi-e than 15s. per week throughout the year, has not much to be either provident or improvident with ; but even among such there may bo a small margin for thrift. Dr. Russell looks upon one section of the class—viz., that which is in actual destitution, and which must be immediately relieved ; whilst 1 look upon another section of the same class—viz., that which possesses the means of being saved from the impending evil, and say, provide yourselves against the evil day. The two agencies work towards the same end, the one from the centre towards the circumference, and the other from the circumference towards the centre. Dr. Russell, in his report, gives prominent importance to the principle of self-help, and he observes that Independence of extiuneous aid, especially medical, rests, for a large proportion of our population, on the continuity of two conditions :—1. The steady application to daily wants of every penny earned; 2. The maintenance of unbroken health, botli by the bread-winner and hi.s dependants. Unhappily, the number of those who deviate from the firat condition greatly swells the ranks of those who necessarily become dependent when the second condition is invaded, as in the most favoured circum- stances it so invariably is from time to time, as children multiply, and time passes. The sole object of the Provident Dispensary scheme is to secure the second condition by the application of the first; and to do so on the principle of mutual a.ssurance, the monthly rates of pay- ment by the Provident members being within the means of all who are not absolutely destitute. If a family, consisting of hus- band, w4fe, and any number of children under sixteen years, cannot afltord to pay, through no fault of their own, at the monthly rate of Is. 4d. for medical attendance and medicines, then I .say that that family, when invaded by sickness, are proper objects for