The hospital and the superintendent : some practical suggestions and insights / by C. Irving Fisher.

  • Fisher, Chester Irving.
Date:
[1902]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The hospital and the superintendent : some practical suggestions and insights / by C. Irving Fisher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    In its origin the hospital was primarily a Christian charity, the first being established during the mediaeval ages for the care of lep- ers. By a process of development, it has gradu- ally broadened its scope, until to-day its door stands wide open to every class of disease or accident, and by the opportunity for scientific investigation which it affords, it has become an important factor in the wonderfully ac- celerated advance of medical and surgical knowledge- From the first, it has furnished practical education for medical students, and more re- centlv its trained nurses have become a neces- «/ sity in the community at large. There was a time when to have been a pa- tient in a hospital meant, practically, the same as to have been an inmate of an almshouse, and carried with it a stigma from which every self- respecting individual revolted. To-day rich and poor alike look to it as a city of refuge where they may flee when attacked by destroy- ing disease. This change in public sentiment has been the result chiefly of two influences, one working from within the hospital and the other from without. *