The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-07-10

A few weeks ago | read with much
interest the address of DR.. Lawrence
Littig. before the Iowa State Medical
Society as printed in the Journal of
the American Medical Association. the
official organ of the medical profession
in this country.
DR.. Littig was not talking before the
unlearned or untaught: rather to a
body OF serious-thinking, studious and
~truth-loving scientists.
Again, quoting him, he states: "A
well-equipped hospital laboratory is
absolutely necessary: without it a hos
pital may be a boarding house for the
sick: but it does not make for pro-
gress. Every cas- must be studied
Through laboratory test, he meansD
before and after the operation. and
quoting from DR.. Murphy, one of the
leading surgeons of the world, Let the
record be shown as to what was done
or found"
Again he pictures the difference be-
tween a hospital that has the outward
appearance and one that has the es-
sentials. This is all quite interesting,
All appear a AlouC bVlOI lht ~
pital investigating committee to say
nice things about the hospital and
that has and will be done. Everybody
should go to the full limit in bestow-
ing praise where it is merited, but in
the instance of it in any essential de-
partment, n in sue procedure as
would prevent error involving life,
when a missing but all-important link
in the chain of good and modern SER
vice is evidenced, it becomes a duty
to withhold appreciation, insofar as
there is defect.
There lies at Reid Memorial Hospital
a most estimable and ~well-known
woman, upon whom operation was
duly considered and determined as
necessary to conserve her chances OF
life. Every ~precaution AT HAND was
supplied. But if the rule laid down in
all standard hospitals" and as de-
manded by DR.. Littig, had been in
vogue at Reid Memorial Hospital, the
necessity of that operation would have
been questioned, or at least further
! preparation for the operation would
have been made, n greater chances
vi Il SOISSl NSu. lSA q SOIlSullllS
physician of high repute was called
into the case he inquired into the lab
oratory findings. But one answer could
be given: Doctor, we have no labor
atory here" And he took away to
indianapolis a sample of the patients
blood. Is a life in jeopardy because of
our inadequacy? What a momentous
question!
A hospital laboratory can not be
worked out in a day or a year. Five
years ago it was proposed. But the
obstacles, oh, the horrid obstacles, evil
denced so often to the DOCTORS, were
still in evidence because THE POW
ERS THAT BE cared little for local
medical opinion.
And, reader, is it presumable that
the doctors would have heart to work
out that problem for the hospital, when
no authority to have control of it
would be granted?
Take a retrospective view as to the
training school for nurses, and remem-
Der the delays, doubts and misgivings
of the board of trustees when the
doctors pleaded for the privilege to
found it, and when its history was told
in five years of splendid work, with
out scandal or sign of inefficiency,
suddenly it became so important that
that board of trustees felt it incum-
bent to take it over to themselves. Do
you now presume that the doctors
would be warranted in working out a
laboratory or that other most needed
adjunct, an X-ray department? And
we quote again from DR.. Littig:
THE hospital board is either too
soundly asleep, or too actively engag-
ed in intramural hostilities to think of