Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1881-10-04
The Proposed Garfield Memorial Hospital.

The call for q meeting of citizens tomorrow
evening to take steps to carry into effect the
suggestion tAat the most appropriate monu.
ment to the memory Of our late resident would
&c the institution of permanent general hos
pital. which should bear his name ought to
bring out gdodly attendance The need of a
general hospital may not be obvious to the
average citizen, but it is well known to physi-
Clans and to all who have been active in local
charities Large numbers of our INDECENT sick
are regularly.sent to the Washington Asylum,
and still larger numbers, who ought to be
treated in hospital instead of at home, refuse
the enforced association with the criminal
classes and supposed disgrace which going to
the asylum Involves. The Freedmens Hospital.
while not in a position to fill this exact
want, has an ample field of good. peculiarly
its own The Central Dispensary 10th street, Is
doing a vast amount of good with slender re-
sources, and it ought to be united in manage
ment with the proposed general hospital, and
serve as an emergency hospital. where patients
brought in, suffering from accidents can receive
treatment, and from which they can be trans
ferred, when necessary to the general hospital
The faculties of our two excellent medical
schools, have long been alive to the necessity of
SUCH an institution, and, 1t is understood, stand
willing to unite their services without pay In
order to insure it the best medical and surgical
skill this District affords. The reciprocal adj
vantages which medical colleges and hospitals
derive from each other are easily understood.
Without patients with whom to illustrate their
clinical lectures, the teachers of the healing art
labor under great disadvantages, while the
schools necessarily seeking the most eminent
physicians and surgeons to fill their professor
ship, thus afford the hospitals which are affil-
lated with thdm the assurance of having In con-
sultation over every difficult case the most skill
full men in the profession. So well understood
fsthls among educated men, that patients of the
highest position, as in therecent case of Senator
HILL seek those hospitals of our large cities as
pay patients, because of their obvious super
iOrity over home treatment.
But the question before the meeting Wednes-
day night will aOt be so much the need of, as
how to establish a general hospital. A large
number of the most eminent of our physicians
endeavOred at the last session to secure an ap-
preparation from Congress for this object, but
without success. partly because the movement
was begun toe late in the short session. But a
good deal of sentiment was created in its favor
among members of both houses. and favorable
action from the District committee of the Senate
was obtained. These physicians have continued
their organization with the intention Of trying
again the coming winter The trustees of the
Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home-a charity
which has expired because the orphans have
grown up-have voted that upon procuring the
necessary enabling legislation from Congress
they will CONVEX their property, the proceeds to
be used as budding fund for general hospital.
The trustees were distinctly averse to this fund
being used to buy property for the government,
holding that Congress ought to purchase suit
able site for the hospital. The Orphans Home
property. wheh sold, would produce the
larger part Of the sum which would
be needed 80 erect hospital buildings
that would be credit to the national capital.
If the people aid property owners of the Dis
trict will now cJme forward and by their volun-
tary contributions swell this fund, for the
specific purposejof establishing Garfield Me-
mortal Hospital there is little doubt that Con-
gress can be induced to do its part. The his
tory of the Admirable charitable institutions we
now possess-anti which to be fairly cOmprehen-
sive only lack thf addition of a general hospi-
tails that the gbyernment has generally been
found willing to help those who show DISPOSE
ton to help themselves. When an institution
mas been fully launched by private effort, Con-
greSs comes forward to do its fair share Finally.
Ii the hospital netting is to be productive of
good it must not allow itself to be drawn off
into discussions OF questions of site or of details
OF any sort. As correspondent of THE STAR
wrote the other day. first catch your hospital"
questions OF detals will be premature until that
OF ways and means has been met, and even then
they VIII have TO lie settled by committee and
not In mass meeting The object of the assem-
blage Tomorrow night should, therefore, be to
see what can be done toward raising money for
the proposed memorial. and to create good
committee of live representative men and cad
Ing physicians to follow up the work.