The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-03

fore I'll be sivin' you tin cints av mine" x
 Many come to a hospital dispensary whom from their outward appearance one would take to be prosperous. yet who cannot afford the fee of 10 cents. Frequently they are persons out of work, with only the clothes on their backs left to them. One young man whos came to the, Post-Graduate was we'll dressed and apparently weil-to- do ,weli-bred young fellow. He paid his fee and came brack from the eye and ear clinic with an order for 45 cents worth of medicine. Something prompted the matron to ask him If he was quite able to pay for that medi- cine. The young man answered quiet-
 w:
 "weiI. if pay for my medicine, I can't pay for dinner. and beyond this I can't even guarantee the price of my medicine, for I don't know where the next cent Is coming from.' They left him the price of dinner, and about a month lated he came in. anxious to to pay the forty-dve cents. He was on his feet again. he said. and was most grateful for the rescued dinner.
 On the other hand. some miserable looking specimens of humanity carry around small fortunes hidden in their rags. An Italian couple was in here yesterday" said the matron of the Post Graduate, with wretched looking little child who was to be fitted with orthopedic braces. I positively shrank from telling them the price-it was twenty-ffve dollars--but did so, ex- pecting them to faint or burst into tears and protestations. But without murmur the man burrowed into his pockets and fished out a great wad of bills from which he selected two tens and five as readily as would pay my car-fair."
 It is is hard to discover in the face of such contradictions as these the ma terial prosperity of the applicants. 1t Is almost impossible sometimes to find out why they are there at all. One. hard pressed. will say, Lady, am troubled inside" meaning thereby not a guilty conscience. but anything from appendicitis to sore throat. My head stomach Is wrong; these are all vague Is wrong" or my heart or my mysteries that must be patiently fer reted out before the trouble may be re- iieved. In reality the maladies are as various as the characters of the patients from the bent, decrepit wanderer from the Ghetto, whose hold on life Is of the slightest. to the babies sauslling with trival ailments. It Is this variety which is one reason for New Yorks value as centre for medical instruc- ton, and one reason why phycisians who have practiscd for years come back to study these cases.
 For the direct alleviation of suffering Is not the only aim of such a dispensary as that of the Post-Graduate Medical School. The physicians who compose the student body of the school come to New York for tho sake of the opportun- ities afforded them of seeing experts at ~x,A af xvafrhiun thnir methods of
 treating difficult cases. In furnishing these opportunities lies the value Of the taispensary in medical instruction. The most interesting cases, from aHtechnicai standpoint. arc made the subjects of clinical lectures and demonstrations in the big amphitheatre crowded with physicians, and the wards of the hospi- tai, where patients for whom dispen- sary treatment is not sufficient are sent, are also open to the students.
 To the laymen. however. the torrent of suffering humanity which pours all day long into the dispensary rooms or a big hospital is as interesting as the se- Iected cases are to the physician stud ents fin the clinics overhead. In the dispensary, charity is given With nlin- imtm expenditure of formality. and 1t meetz with as direct and spontaneous gratitude But the gratitude is mixed with a strange pleasure. To many an old rounder, waiting at the dispensary is an occasion" as much enjoyed as any afternoon tea by more pampered citizens, and in the various ante,rooms the discussion of ones ills Is carried on with great gusto. if little knowledge. With cheerfuiness and the apathy of de- spair, with frauds and the pride of self respecting poverty, the dispensary Is an epitomic of life in New York's tene- ments.