The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-01-27 00:00:00

OPTHALMIC INFIRMARY.

The Practice in the Licerrool Opthabnie byfirmary :for the year
MU By Hugh Neill, Surgeon to the Charity.' • Loudon :
Lougmau and Co.—Liverpool: \V. Grape!.
'Until we were cognizant of the fact. from actlial observation,
and from reading the work now before us, we had no idea that
,• the cases of diseased eves in this tOwn could have amounted to
one half, or ever Lone fourth of the number which. have been
cured or relieved at the Opthaltnie Infirmary. During the past
year 1,768 cases, comprismg almost every variety of disease
that the eve is subject to, have been treated at this institution :
some of the patients who sought relief in a state of total blind-
ness have been restored to a useful if not perfect sight,. while
others, who were fast verging to that melancholy. and pitiable
state of helplessness, have been enabled to retain what we are
accustomed .to regard as the most valuable of nursenses.
Mr. Neill has divided his excellent publication under the
following heads :—Prefatory address—History of the charity.
with a sketch of• its arrangements--Table of the eases admitted-
into the Infirmary, or treated as out-door patients—Diseases
treated, and cases of blindness cured by operation.-
In his ref:story address Mr. Neill has explained with great
force and perspicuity the advantages of institutions of this kind,
which, while they secure to the professed objects of their bounty,
the poor. the gratuitous services of the best professional ta-
lents—secure also to the rich the assistance of n greater degree
of practical skill in the surgeons, who are in the constant
habit of seeing every species of diseased eyes congregated, as it
were, around them. Of all the learned professions that of the
healing art is the most laborious, the most useful, and the roost
ill rewarded. The very institutions which they attend gratui-
tously deprive them of a.very large portion of the emoluments
of their private practice; for some are to be form(' who arc base
enough to apply to these charities for relief, as paupers, who
ought to support them as contributors. A Case of this kind is
noticed in Mr. Neills' pier-ice. He says-"A few months
back I was under the painful necessity of 'dismissing a well-
attired lady, who brought her child to the charity. Aware,
hoWever. that in a commercial community like that of Liver-
pool reverses of fortune are otien sudden and unavoidable, I
'felt unhappy till I prosecuted inquiries respecting the private
eircutnstances of the individual in question. Will it be cre-
dited that this female's husband was not only in a business in
which ready money is uniformly tabled' down. but that she
and her family occupied a private residence, whose rent could
not lie lesS than .E.N to £5ll per annum ! To sh,w how much
the feeling of pride and a sense of honourable independence is
unhappily lost in sonic cases, I regret having to state that this
same person made inquiries as to the days on which my col-
league officiated, and she unblushingly presented herself aqd
son to him as fit objects for gratuitous advice and medicine.'
This was an attempt to commit a double fraud—a fraud ujion
the charity, and a fraud upon the profession.

We caonet take leave of Mr. Neill's book without congratu-
lating him upon his success as an operating surgeoutupon that
delicate organ the eye, without recommending his-report to the
attention of our readers, convinced that by doing so we shall
best serve the valuable institution to which he belongs.