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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    necessities of lift-, ami yet it uiay truly be said to Ije one of its necessary accidents. It is a contingent event, but a contingent event which, speaking genenilly, is certain to come sooner or later. Is it wise then, to rest contented with a state of things which ])er- mits so large a proportion of the population to rely upon the charitable help they can obtain from othei-s in a matter which is, sooner or later, a practical certainty—almost as much a certainty as that another meal will be needed, or another suit of clothes? It seems to us that no thoughtful person can acquiesce in a state of things wliich, under the name of charity, is in truth pauperising a large section of the community, and inducing them to depend, not upon their own prudence and forethought, but upon the aid they can derive from othei-s. That the most flagrant abuses existed, and were increasing to an alarming extent, was evident; and it was found that a pressure was brought upon the hospitals greater than they were able to bear. Accoriling to Dr. Meadows, the poor were being gradually ousted out of the consulting room by well-tQ-do persons; and he knew, as a fact, that persons in the possession of incomes of XI,000 a year came as oiit-patients to receive advice, and that the wives and daughters of men almost as wealthy actually borrowed their servants' clothes in order to ajiply as outdoor patients. So great had this evil become that, according to parties who had investigated the matter, in the interior of London, including its great eastern and southern quarteis, nearly all below the middle class, and some even of them, were provided with medical attend- ance and medicines by private charity, with some assistance from the Poor Law. As a matter of coui-se, medical relief of this kind was little better than a mockery, owing to the impossibility of giving sufficient time and attention to each case. The waiting rooms of the hospitals and free dispensaries were besieged by crowds of patients, who were frequently seen, and passed through the medical and surgical mill at the rate of fifty per hour. Those who thus depended upon the oiitdoor patient department of the hospitals for their medical relief, after wasting perhaps a day in begging for a subscriber's letter, and half-a-day in the waiting room of the hospital, got on an average, perhaps a minute of the physician's or surgeon's time, one whom they had never seen before, and might never see again; and perhaps, in addition, a bottle of medicine, for which they would require to