The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-16 00:00:00

dodo:

patients three or four hours and afterwards make
up their medicines as best he can. Unfortunately

there is no room for believing such statements to
be eve n exaggerated. The testimony of indepen-
dent medical witnesses, who are certainly not gene-

rally deficient in shrewdness or perception, is
indig handy unanimous. Dr. ANSTIE was one of
the commissioners appointed by the proprietors of
the lancet to examine into the state of all the

motropolitan impurities. Dr. ANSTIE sonfesses that
he bad no strong impressions on the matter when
he undertook the duty, and though, in common

with others, he believed that there was some over-
crowding and insufficient nursing and attendance,
his opinion of such wards as he had seen was on the
whole favourable. The honest indignation which
breathes all through DR. ANsTIE's statement suffi-
ciently shows how completely his views have been
changed, and the facts he refers to are certainly
enough, as he says, "to rouse andpainfullyshockthe
national conscience."
' •

At Lambeth a Single medical officer has under his
care 700 persons invalided. One-half this number
are seriously ill, and 70 arc lunatics. He is non-
resident, and there is no one at hand to attend
to any emergency. What would be thought of an
hospital so peopled without a resident house sur-
geon? At St. Pancras there are 250 acutely sick,
there are more than 100 lunatics, many of them
very troublesome, and the infirm and chronic cases
make up the total requiring medical attendance to
more than 1,000. To attend to this vast army of

sufferers there are two resident medical officers

who receive respectively £l6O and £B5, and who
have to make up all medicines required between the
hours of 4 p.m. and 9.30 'a.m. In another work-
house the surgeon has 250 acutely sick under his
care, and has also to dispense all the medicines ;
for which duties he is paid at the rate of less than
half-a-crown a day. He confessed that the per-
formance of his duties was merely nominal, that he
never used the stethoscope for fear of losing time ;
that the medicine he gave was regulated more with
regard to the facility of dispensing it than to the
cure of the patients. At Shoreditch, again, the
surgeon has to attend to 400 sick, infirm,
and insane, and to dispense all their drugs.
He gives three hours a day to visiting these
400 (a very simple calculation will show the num-
ber of minutes to each), and then repairs to his
dispensary to make up their drugs from memory !
Yet, what can he do ? He must attend to his pri-

vate practice or starve on his salary.
" There is not a single London infirmary, " says
Dr. ANSTIE, " in which the medical attendance" is
not utterly insufficient. But this is not the worst.
" The unfortunate sick paupers are entirely in the
hands of pauper nurses, always ignorant find
clumsy, often drunken and cruel." The Guardians
are yearly elected in the poorer parishes from a
lower and a lower class, " whose existence is
passed in a fierce struggle to sq ueeze
a profit oat of their artisan tenants which may neu-
tralise the burden of the constantly increasing
rates." No wonder that they should lose all feel-
ing for the terrible sufferings which sickness and
accident entail on the labouring poor. " Their
education is too low to enable them to see the truly
economic value of a judicious liberality in such mat-
ters as the treatment of a temporarily disabled
bread-winner or mother of a family." All these
great evils, Dr. ANSTIE thinks, must be treated on
a uniform plan, and the necessity of dealing with
them promptly and efficiently was strongly
impressed upon the head of the Poor-law Board by
a large and influential deputation on Saturday after-
noon. It will be remembered that a numerous
meeting was held at Willis's Rooms a few weeks
ago, and the terms of one of the resolutions were
repeated to Mr. VILLIERS by Lord CARNARVON.
After reading the facts quoted above, few, we think,
will be disposed to dispute the truth of the assertion,
" That the present management of the sick poor in
the metropolitan workhouses is highly unsatisfac-
tory; that the buildings are inadequate and un-
healthy, the medical attendance insufficient,
the nursing merely nominal, and the gene-
ral administration radically defective." These
statements were fully borne out by several
gentlemen present—among them Br. ROGERS, ten
years medical officer of one of our largest unions.
They were enforced by a number of influential per-
sons, and were received by Mr. VILLIERS with
every mark of attention. The cure proposed for
these monster evils is the total separation of the
sick poor from the able-bodied. It is recommended
that six consolidated infirmaries should be erected
under proper regulations ; that paid nurses should
be appointed, one day nurse, one night nurse,
and one assistant to every fifty patients. That
there should be one resident medical officer for
every two hundred and fifty patients. That the
patients should be classified, and 1,000 cubic feet
of air allowed for each. That the doctors should
have no interest in the medicines, nor should
they dispense them. Mr. VILLIERS received these
suggestions very favourably, and said he hoped
the House of Commons would be prevailed upon
to have a general rate for the sick poor instead
of the present system.
We can hardly doubt that some such reform
will promptly be set on foot, for our Parliament
will surely not be induced to give its sanction,
directly or indirectly, to so cruel, extravagant,
and disastrous a system as the present.
5

The Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth

in Ormond-street.