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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    The question now arises, how far is this great amount of infantile disease provided for in our towns ? The first point to settle, is the extent of relief afforded by ordinary Medical Institutions. When the Birmingham Children's Hospital was set on foot in the year 1861, I instituted an inquiry into this point. The Lying-in Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, did not admit children as in-patients, and the whole number of children at and under seven years of age treated during the first three months of that year, amounted only to 15. At the General Dispensary there were 4,456 patients, either treated at their own homes or at the Institution, in the year 1860. The number of children under seven years of age amounted to 269, or about W; though the mortality of male children under five years of age was more than 50 per cent, of the whole mortality of that sex in the town. There are two General Hospitals in the town. The list of in-patients at the Queen's Hospital shows, during the first three months of 1861, 12 children under seven years of age out of 286 patients, or W- Of the out-patients : 208, out of 1,288, were under seven years of age; 143 of these were surgical cases, with which we are not now concexmed. In the same period there were admitted as in-patients into the General Hospital, 40 children at and under seven years of age, out of a total number of 499 patients. Out of 4,159 out-patients, there were 541 children at and under seven years of age. The proportion of surgical cases among these was, I believe, even greater than at the sister institu- tion, but the ratio is little more than one eighth of the total number. These figures, drawn from Birmingham, accu- rately represent the degree of attention paid to infantile maladies at our General Charities. Proof of this may be adduced from the last Report of the Infirmary of the town in which we are now assembled. In the year 1868, there