Records of the Miller Hospital and Royal Kent Dispensary / by John Poland.

  • Poland, John, 1855-1937.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Records of the Miller Hospital and Royal Kent Dispensary / by John Poland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    preface. DMIRATION must always be felt for the Poet Physician, Sir Samuel Garth, who, as far as this country is concerned, may be regarded as the first founder of Dispensaries. For, as is probably well known, Dr. Garth energetically promoted the erection of a dispensary or apartment in the College of Physicians for the relief of the poor by giving them advice gratis and dispensing medicines to them at low rates. This work of charity exposed him to a great complaint on the part of the Apothecaries and others; but he turned his opponents into ridicule in his poem The Dispensary (first published in 1699; tenth edition in 1841), and further advocated his scheme in The necessity and usefulness of the Dispensaries, London, 1702. Among the multifarious writings of that worthy Physician and Philanthropist, Dr. Lettsom, will be found his Hints respecting General Dispensaries for extending Medical Relief to the Poor at their own Habitations, published in 1772, which are still worthy of perusal by all who have the true interests of these institutions at heart. Mr. A. Highmore in his excellent work Pietas Londinensis, published in 1810, says, That when Dispensaries were first instituted there was wanting some charitable institution between the hospital and the poorhouse; for the former afforded relief only to the sick who would become its temporary inhabitants and whose diseases required confinement