The Express.
London, England, 1865-03-20 00:00:00

110 BROMPTON CONSUMPTION
HOSPITAL.

A visit to this admirable institution fully repays
say one interested in the spread of philanthropy or
ihe arrest of disease. Whether we consider the
msgpaitude and terrible character of the evil with
which it ie designed to grapple, the completeness of
its internal arrangements, or the amount of good it
saanally effects, the Brompton Hospital is entitled
ion foremost place among the many noble charities
bearing testimony to the piety and benevolence of
sea land. At this particular time, too, when the
delight and excitement caused by the recent royal
visit are still fresh upon the minds both of patients
sad officer% a peculiar interest pertains both to
conversation with its inmates and the inspection of
their wards. The kind sympathy shown by the
Q4Ollll, the particularity of her questions, and the
unaffected womanly interest she displayed, are
being now eagerly commented on by many who are,
humanly speakin beyond the reach of earthly skill.
The eiguature "Victoria" in the visitors' kook
...stile manner appearance, and demeanour of
be Queen—the very chair she sat in—the
wards anil galleries she traversed and the thresh?
olds she crossed, have been all topics of unbounded
!Merest within the walls of the hospital, and a fillip
has been given to many a poor invalid by this
unexpected and unwonted break in the necessarily
monotonoue routine of sick-room life.
The 'visitor, following in the wake of her
Majesty. enters the precincts of the hospital by the
lodge-gate in the Brompton-road, and after crossing
the well-drained and .Matefully laid out grounds
penes by the central ball, and proceeds to the
western door, which is for the use of the household,
and for the friends of the in-door patients, who are
permitted to visit them on the afternoons of Tues-
day, Friday, and Sunday in each week. Once
lands the building, the perfection of the arrange-
ments for warming and ventilation is very marked.
From the lofty well-proportioned committee-room
—where the original charter deed, with its signa-
tures of the late Prince Consort, of three successive
Dukes of Norfolk, of Liston, Sir John Forbes,
and others, holds honoured place—to the principal
hall, gained after every nook and corner of the
building has been seen, and where the framed list
of legacies and benefaction* includes more than
one item of small amount, but which represented
the worldly all of some poor patient determined
to do his or her utmost to mark the
gratitude felt for benefits reaped—from one
extremity of this vast pile to the other—
there is not the faintest suspicion of windy
dratightiuess on the one hand, or of a vitiated
atmosphere on the other. This is due to the ad-
mirable precautions taken. One half the hospital
is wirbusi by air heated by pawing through Dr.
Arnott's apparatus, and then conducted by air
channels through the wards and corridors ; while
the valves in the chimneys and open fire-places pro-
vide for its ventilation. The remainder is heated
by pipes ef warm water, while an extracting shaft,
heated with steam, takes off the vitiated air by
large duets, plentifully interspersed throughout the
building. Of the result of this apparently complex,
but really simple arrangement, it would be difficult
to speak too highly. The atmosphere of the vast
house is thus made uniform and mild, and its bene-
ficial effect upon the sensitive lungs of the poor
people inhaling it is beat evidenced by the coin
parative rarity of the hacking dreadful cough with
which all wholave visited consumptive patients are
Do painfully familiar. During a visit of some hours'
drimtiou, t his immunity from one of the =standing
of sounds was especially noteworthy, sod this
efficiency of the purifying steam shafts is to the
full as noteworthy as is the comprehensive excel-
lence of the steam-cooking and general apparatus.
This is seen at work in the kitchen and its outlying
tributaries. These rooms are built outside the
hospital, with which, however, they communicate
by passage and stairs. Upon their scrupulous clean-
liness and admirable adaptation to the requirements
of the patients it would be superfluous to comment.
By an ingenious process the steam which heats the
water for the baths turns the roasting spit, grinds
the coffee, and raises one lift which takes up the
patients' meals hot from the kitchen to the wards,
and another whereby the feeble are conveyed to and
from the galleries to the basement, so that they
may, when their case permits it, enjoy. the garden
and fresh air, in bath chairs or otherwise, without
the fatigue—which would frequently amount to a
prohibition—of ascending or descending the stairs.
The monster gridiron, whereon from twenty to
thirty invalid's chops may be seen cooking at one
time—the spit just named, with perhaps a dozen
to twenty joints gently twirling before a substantial
acreage of fire—the large steam cupboard-oven,
from the door of which, when opened for your in-
spection, a mighty blast of white vapour issues
forth, rushing madly to the ceiling as if to form an
artificial cloud-land, and wherein potatoes are being
rapidly converted into veritable balls of flour, and
tasty little plats for delicate appetites are being
tenderly perfected—the row of vast boilers, each
holding fourteen gallons, and reminding the looker-
en of Morgiania and the Forty Thieves, every one of
which is reserved for its specific purpose, as milk,
coffee, chocolate, farinaceous puddings, broths, and
stewed meats, wherefrom it is never perverted—the
larger coppers, to which the boilers just described
are in size as is a patched pea to an ostrich egg, and
in which many joints are placidly reclining in a
congealed ocean of savoury jelly—the dairy and
bread-room, with its immense marble tanks of
richly creaming milk, its carefully modulated
current; of cold air, its plenteous store of aerated
loaves, and its well-iced, moulds of butter—all
testily to the thoughtful care and minute considera-
tion with which sickly appetites are tempted, and
the generous liberality with which invalid tables are
supplied. In the dispensary again, where a number
cf assistants are busily engaged in making up pre-
scriptions and apportioning doses, means are equally
adapted to the desired end. The drugs are all kept
in their moat concentrated form, so that one of
the moderate sized bottles or jars covering the walls
probably holds enough to physic a regiment. Cod
liver oil, as might be expected, holds prominent
place in this room, and the large oblong white tank
containing it has several t cps, so that many cf the
dispensers can draw from it at the same time. Ex-
quisitely clear, and when held up -to the light, of
the hue of a pale golden sherry, this staple presents
a striking contrast at Brompton to the cloudy,
muddy compound not bnfrequeutly claiming
to be genuine, and sold under its name.
From the dispensary to the out-patients' ward, and
consulting and waiting rooms is but a step. Past a
corridor, a drinking fountain in which
is always kept playing in the hours when pa-
tients pass it, but which with com-
mendable economy, for the hospital is mindful
of its water rates, was silent when we saw it, and
the visitor is ushered through the rooms where the
people who are_ not inmates wait their turn, sod
ultimately receive prescriptions and advice. tip
the stairs to the first floor, and we traverse the
Victoria Gallery, so called after her Majesty, who
is the patron of the charity, and one of its earliest
friends, and subsequently on the same floor the
Jenny Lind Gallery, named after Madame Gold-
scbmidt, who by devoting the entire proceeds of a
morning concert to the hospital handed over to the
committee more than 1,6001., and enabled them to
eonnneuce building their east wing. That this
lady's interest in the institution is unabated is
proved by the fact that three years ago she supple-
incited her previous munificent donation by giving
the committee 9001., being the gross re-
ceipts taken at an oratorio in which she
sang at Exeter Hall. These galleries, as
well as the wards on either side of them, are
devoted to female patients. Both corridors and
rooms are kept at the same temperature, and are
plentifully provided with well-cushioned seats, easy
soothes, and moveable tables. Chairs on wheels for
such poor creatures as are too weak to walk ; chess,
books, draughts, and solitaire, for those well enough
to be amused ; materials for bead-work, netting,
nrochet, for those desiring other occupation, are
provided, and their use encouraged. A walk
through these rooms is by no means so harrowing as
eine night reasonably expect. Wan and sunken
fans, aeon which the relentless hen!' of death is
untnetakeably laid—eyes of painful brilliance, gazing
with wistful steadfastness at the ceiling, orbeyond
11, as if the soul within were silently but gnarly