The realities of medical attendance on the sick children of the poor in large towns / by T.P. Heslop.

Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The realities of medical attendance on the sick children of the poor in large towns / by T.P. Heslop. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    These figures suffice to demonstrate that the diseases of children among the poorer classes are but partially attended to at our great charities, or rather are all but wholly neg- lected. This fact is particularly manifested by the small number of children admitted into the wards of the General Hospitals, for, as no home visiting is carried on in these great charities, those children who are too ill to be conveyed to the Hospitals must seek relief elsewhere. There are, unfortunately, methods of obtaining relief only too familiar to mothers in great towns. The children are treated, at a small cost in money, mainly by druggists and unlicensed practitioners, until the case assumes a dangerous aspect, and then, peidiaps in the last hour of the little patient, the mother hurries to the nearest surgeon for the purpose of securing a legal certificate of the death, when that shall occur. Even this precaution is not always taken, and the child dies, as it has lived, outside the pale of medical science. Out of 252 deaths recorded by Mr. Leigh, one of the Man- chester Registrars, 49 were uncertificated; 41, out of these uncertificated cases, were children. In referring to the thou- sands of children who helplessly perish in this country from bad treatment under this system, who ought to have “ grown up men and women, bulwarks of the state,” the same gen- tleman makes the following apposite remarks :—“ How far the evil might be mitigated by medical men themselves, by an extension of eleemosynary aid, it is difficult to say, for the poor cannot pay medical fees; in many cases they will not pauperize themselves by applying to the Parish Surgeon, and the profession already contributes more to the relief of the poor than any other body in society.” In order to remedy this state of things, so far as con- cerned Birmingham, the Children's Hospital was opened nearly eight years ago. Its operations had commenced but a few months when it occurred to me to inquire from the