The London poor and their medical needs / by Conrad W. Thies.

  • Thies, Conrad W.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The London poor and their medical needs / by Conrad W. Thies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    had of Mr. Booth’s work. In explaining one or two points in connection with the diagrams and maps lent by Mr. Booth for the meeting, Mr. Argyle dwelt on the extreme difficulty of making any very clearly defined distinction between the varied classes in London. There was so much “ overlapping.” Referring to the Poor Law infirmaries, he thought that the seeming increase in the number of patients they relieved was due in a great measure to the abolition of out-door relief, the result of which was to greatly swell the proportion of people who got medical relief. Mr. H. Howgrave-Graham, referring to the question of localisation, said Mr. Michelli had expressed some surprise at the way in which some of the hospitals were located. His attention was drawn to the point some years ago, and he was at some pains to investigate the matter. If his memory served him, when he drew a straight line from north to south on the map of London through Broad Street station, he found four hospitals ©n the east of that line, and all the rest on the west side. From this and other sources it became apparent to him that the object was to plant the hospitals among the rich, where they could attract attention and get money, and also where they would be in easy reach for the chief medical men of London. He believed that the greatest mistake was made in transplanting St. Thomas’s—or rather, perhaps, in the selection of the new site. He also found, in the course of investigation, that the provident dispensaries were similarly in the richest part of London, because where they were established there was more chance of their getting help. As to the poor law infirmaries, he found that the poor preferred going to the voluntary institution rather than to the official : there appeared to be a feeling that in going to a voluntary hospital the best advice was ensured. The Chairman, in summing up, congratulated Mr. Thies on his paper, which he (the Chairman) thought particularly interesting at the present time when so much discussion on hospitals—especially as to the out-patient departments—was going on. One was always hearing that the voluntary hospitals were abused, but he thought Mr. Thies’ paper very fully dispelled such illusory condemnation. At St. Bartholo¬ mew’s the vast majority of patients were well acquainted with real poverty, and in the Institution they were then assembled in this was even more marked, for relief was seldom applied for there except by those in the very depths of poverty. Mr. Thies, in his paper, referred to the great waste of clinical material that went on in the workhouse infirmaries. For his part he would like to see some scheme by which this waste could be prevented, and the institutions thrown open