Part III.] HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES IN THE BENGAL PRESIDENCY.
85
Dispensaries as
training institutions.
Deputy Surgeon-General C. R. Francis, M. B., of the Dinapore Circle, is of
opinion that our dispensaries might with great advantage be utilized as train-
ing schools :—
I should be glad to see our dispensaries more recognized than they are as training
institutions. The system of entertaining apprentices was interdicted when that of educating
native medical pupils was introduced. Some medical officers complain of the interdiction, and
say that the door for the education of promising lads as dressers and compounders is closed;
but I presume that it was never intended to extend so far as this. On the contrary, it seems
very desirable that intelligent lads should thus be instructed, as in seasons of emergency a class
of compounders would be found sufficiently well qualified to take up the functions of native
doctors—a view, the correctness of which has been verified in the present famine.
Objection to treating
the police sick in
dispensaries.
In some localities it has become the practice to admit the police sick into
dispensaries for treatment—for want of special accommodation. The objections
to this are very apparent, and Deputy Surgeon-General J. Tresidder alludes to
the subject in these words :—
Special accommoda-
tion for police sick
should always be pro-
vided.
I hope soon to see eliminated from dispensaries the very objectionable practice of admit-
ting police sick into the hospital wards with the poor. Our poor are not always free from crime,
nor is a Government policeman the most tolerant of neighbours to an irritable patient; and in
cold weather, the policeman being a Government servant, and the hospital blankets, &c., Govern-
ment property, he often takes by violence the clothing from a poor patient who urgently wants
it. Numerous complaints on this head reach me, and I use my best endeavour, wherever I find
the practice prevailing, to recommend to civil officers to prevent the police from being admitted
with the pauper patients. A hut should be hired near the dispensary for the police sick in the
outskirts, where the dispensary hospital assistant could attend to the patient without extra
expense to Government, or, in stations where there are jails, a row of huts should be built for a
police hospital near the jail gate, and the jail hospital assistant could easily do this extra work.
This plan would effect great saving and render separate large police hospitals unnecessary, and
at the same time the cost of a special hospital assistant would be saved, and I believe dispensaries
would greatly increase in popularity.
Utilization of Baids
and Hakeems.
As with the endeavour to utilize the hereditary midwife, so has a similar
attempt to utilize the Baids and Hakeems resulted everywhere in failure.
Further on allusion will be made to the subject in relation to each province in
which they are employed, but the following opinion of the Deputy Surgeon-
General of the Amballa circle is worthy of attention:—
I cannot close this report without commenting on the practice which prevails in many
districts in the Amballa circle of medical administration. Baids and Hakeems are em-
ployed by the orders of the Deputy Commissioners, and are paid a salary and granted an
allowance for medicines, and are sent clothed with the authority of Government servants into
towns and cities to practise medicine. I have conversed with many of these men, and though
I am acquainted with all the theories of native practitioners, I have found that in nearly every
case they have little or no education, and know next to nothing of the science of medicine as
taught by the Arabic or any other authors.
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Sons of Baids and
Hakeems.
No effort, however, I think, should be lost in trying to secure the sons of these men being
sent to our medical schools for training, with the view of their becoming eventually medical
practitioners properly licensed by Government to practise.
In discussing the subject of the appointment of Baids and Hakeems with some of the
Deputy Commissioners of districts, they say the people have asked for these men to be em-
ployed and they like their practice; the people also like suttee and infanticide; but the Gov-
ernment do not allow of these likings; the other I think equally injurious.
Civil Medical Offi-
cers.
The Deputy Surgeons-General, in their reports of inspections submitted to
the head of the department, bear high testimony almost universally to the
zeal and ability of the medical officers who have worked under them in the
civil department.
The licentiates of the medical colleges, who, as assistant surgeons, held
important charges, have in no less a degree merited the high approbation of
their administrative chiefs. The estimate in which Deputy Surgeon-General
J. F. Beatson, M.D., holds these medical practitioners will be found recorded at
page 106 of this report; and though the subject is not so directly noticed by
other inspecting officers, there is but one opinion respecting the superior ac-
quirements and steady working of these eminently-useful servants of Govern-
ment. The success of the higher medical education in India is a matter
which is well removed from the region of doubt.
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