An account of the circumstances attending the imprisonment and death of the late William Millard, formerly superintendent of the Theatre of Anatomy of St. Thomas's Hospital, Southwark.

Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the circumstances attending the imprisonment and death of the late William Millard, formerly superintendent of the Theatre of Anatomy of St. Thomas's Hospital, Southwark. 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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    s to sAy, a still more objectionable regulation is descriljed in page 225 of the Historical Account of St. Thomas's Hospital. We are there informed, that the patients are examined in rooms appointed for that purpose, by the physician or surgeon of the week, under whose care they are to be placed, and if reported proper objects for relief, they are requested to produce a respectable guarantee for their removal lUhen cured, or their burial if they die in the hospital, or deposit the sum of one guinea to defray the expense of the latter, which deposit is returned when they leave the hospital cured or relieved. We need not stop to advert to the reasonableness of requiring fees and securities from persons, who, to become qualified for admission into the hospital, must he in low circum- stances and destitute of friends; nor is it necessary to dwell upon the cheering and consolatory effect it must have on the mind of one bowed down by sickness and suffering, to be called on, as the first preliminary step to a cure, to give security for the expenses of his interment, in case he should die under the treatment of those into whose hands he is about to entrust his life! These reflections must occur to every one becoming acquainted with the above-mentioned regulations. It is however chiefly for the purpose of noticing an abuse which this practice gave rise to on the part of one of the inferior servants of the hospital, and which, for the credit of human nature, it is to be hoped no longer exists. It may be readily conceived, that the greater portion of those who apply for the benefit of this charity, are really and literally, as they declare on the petition which they present, in low circumstances and destitute of friends.'' This regulation would obviously present an insuperable obstacle to the admission of numerous applicants. On such occasions, therefore, one of the porters it remembered, who either directly or indirectly are amply remunerated for their professional services to the patients. In short, Mr. Brookes, or Mr. Grainger, or the owner of any other school of anatomy, might with equal justice claim assistance from the funds of St. Thomas's, or Guy's Hospitals, for the purpose of building or repairing the respective esta- blisliments belonging to those gentlemen. Note.—[Since this pamphlet was sent to the press we have been in- formed, that some of the fees above-mentioned have been discontinued: if this be the fact, it affords another proof of the salutary effects of publicity in the removal of abuse. It cannot, however, in the slightest degree invalidate the animadversions made on the application, or rather mis-application, of the funds, as the fees in question were taken for many years after the erection of the museum, anatomical theatre, and dissect- ing rooms, at St. Thomas's Hospital.]