, 1888-06-29
NEW Works. FREE PHYsIc.
All Sorts of People Supplied with Drugs
for All Manner of Complaints.

IOIh anu brooklyn, ana bhey vary IN
character mainly in the class of people
who patronize them-the very poor, who
for obvious reasons are driven to resort
to them, and the rich or moderately cir
cumstanced who know little more than
that a dispensary is a place to which peo-
pie resort when they are sick to get free
medical treatment.
The oldest and largest of these free
dispensaries is the New York dispensary
in Center street, which has been in oper-
alton over ninety years, and has treated
over 2, 900, 900 patients. The old North
ern d~ispensary in Christopher street,
founded in 1917, treats about &c, 900 pa
tients annually; the Eastern, in Essex
street, founded in 1882, does equally good
work, while the Demilt, founded in 1851,
the Northwestern, the German, the
Northeastern, and a host of outdoor de-
partments of hospitals, asylums, charita-
BILE societies and SO on.
The Demilt dispensary is a three story
brick building. The main reception
room is filled with wooden benches and
divided into seven or eight compartments
at one side. These and two or three or
binary rooms that also open into the main
room, are the offices of the staff of ply
s%icians, each having his special depart
ment of ailments to attend to. The viz
iting hours are different for different
| classes of ailments; children are treated
at one hour, men at another, women at
another, and SO on. Two female doctors
preside evenings to attend to female
patients who have to work during the
daytime. Every sort of ailment except
contagious diseases is freely treated here.
Whatever of misery there is in this
perpetual stream of the sick poor is not
visible in the main room. DIR. Charles
G. Currier, the house physician, says a
great many more women thar men
are treated, and that women seem to be
more frequently i'll, or are more prone to
believe themselves i'll, when they are not
so, than men, who are more practical
and Come for help only when absolutely
necessary.
h ome are for the most part neatly
dressed and the majority of them look
well, if not rugged, though now and then
a cough or other sign will betoken the
fact that they are suffering. AS the peo-
pie enter the building they go to the first
Of the small rooms, where the house
physician sits, and tell him what the
matter is.
II want a tooth pulled, " says one.
81 have rheumatism, " says another.
Others will have a headache, a backache
or a sprain, and 30 on. Very frequently
an inebriated individual will enter.
I've been on a spree and want to
sober up, " a young man will say.
A dose of bromide of potassium and
chloral is given, and he is told to go home
and go to bed and come pack in a few
hours. One woman calls and says she
| hal "a Giatar with tla 80 Y,Apia - and
another has a friend with the ''brown
keeters," and in the course of a day
much similar perversion of medical
nomenclature may be heard. The utmost
civility and greatest kindness are always
practiced toward patients at this dispen-
sary. A great many painters are treated
for lead palsy at dispensaries.
The lead that poisons them is taken
into the system through the mouth"
said Dr. Starr. when they quit work
they fall to eating their luncheon without
washing their hands, and so take in, lit
tie by little, enough lead to do the mis-
chief. They breathe in the lead also in
warm, close rooms; but it is the stomach,
and not, as might be supposed, the lungA
that become at first affected. The
electrical treatment applied to the
Giles is the most satisfactory, and will
soonest restore the nerves to their normal
condition"
There have been recent additions
which make the work far more efficient
today than it was in the dispensary of a
quarter of a century ago. For instance,
the doctors interest themselves in secur-
ing employment for painters disabled at
their trade so as to make them unable to
continue at it; then again, there are
trained nurses i'll constant attendance at
thed ispensaries, who instruct friends Of
patients how to care for them at home.
and if cases require it to 60 to the houses
to nurse the sick themselves. Bed sheets,
pillow cases, Undertaking, skirts,
dresses, ETC., are also kept in stock at
some of the d~ispensaries for free distribu-
ton among the worthy poor.
Medical experts in all departments
serve without pay for the experience and
the honor, and SO excellent is the reputa-
ton of some of the d~ispensaries that
many members of their medical staffs
have been called to the larger hospitals
and made faculty members of their
boards.
In the annual report of the Demilt dis
pensary for last year it appears that a.
500 people were treated by that institu-
~ " SNNlD NolNtlNdDlS NdllGlO VI
disease, and many more visited at their
homes by its doctors. A doctor will be
sent to visit any sick person of whom
they are notified. Ten cents is charged
for each prescription made up only from
those who acknowledge they are willing
and able to pay it. By far the great
majority pay nothing at all. 1t is an in
teresting commentary on the general
retail drug store prices that ten cents is
found to be fair compensation for all pre-
scriptions. For every expensive com
pound on which there is n loss of ten or
fifteen cents there are two or three cheap
ones costing only two or three cents.
1t has been found impossible to dis
criminate as to the eligibility of indoor
patients for charity treatment. No one
can always determine whether a man or
woman is or is not able to pay for the
medicines used in their behalf. The
outward appearance determines little, as
many, particularly among the women,
wear very fair clothing which has been
given TO them. On the other hand a
man may look as shabby as one well
could and yet be the owner of one OF