Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1912-01-24
Correspondence.
a Hospital for Ellsworth 2

been projected for Ellsworth during the
| past i've years no one has been vslorous
enough to suggest hospital. Other com
munities smaller than our own are fur
nished with well-equipped general hos
pitfalls, provided with all essential sppsrs-
tus, and handling with ease and skill the
different cases, medical and surgical,
which come to their doors.
Few greater blessings can come to a
community than an institution of this
sort Offering the widest opportunity for
skilled attendance in those various ILL.,
nesses and catastrophies OF the physical
man which are incident to our mortality.
There may be many of the readers OF THE
AMERICAN who bave never considered at
length what are the advantages OF such a
place in the Life of town or city.
| First to be named are those which sc-
crue to the physicians. A country ply
stefan has always the disadvantage of be-
| ing deprived of those great clinical oppor-
tunities which come to his brother physi-
clan of the City. In days when the gener-
al practitioner was in the ascendant, and
every sick-room was clinic in itself, this
! disadvantage was less hardly felt; but in
the modern days, with specialization the
ruling tendency, and the surgeon called
upon with increasing frequency, the study
of single cases is not sufficient; success
sion of cases, each having its special char
acteristics will alone give the medical man
| the opportunity tor prolonged investiga-
ton of particular type OF disease which
is necessary Tor mastery.
/ Take operative treatment OF appendi-
citis as an example. Only that man who
has had large experiences in the treatment
OF this subtle and dangerous disorder can
estimate accurately the moment in its de-
| velopment when medical treatment must
| give place to surgical or the life of the
patient be forfeited. Many life has been
sacrificed that might have been saved IL
the patient could have been placed earlier
under the merciful knife. But when the
alternative is a home utterly untitled for
the delicate requirements of surgical
case; or putting a desperately sick man or
woman upon a railroad tram, without
ambulance aid, for a sickening journey,
what wonder that the hesitation follows
which in the end spells "lost"?
/ hospital would have avoided all this.
| Or take the advantage which comes to the
physician when it is possible for him at
short notice to put a case under the strict
regimen OF diet and care which hos
pital affords. How many sick people are
brought 20 the verge of nervous prostra-
! tion during their convalescence from a
dangerous illness because of the ignor-
ant but we'll efforts of friends on
the one hand, or persons entirely unfit
who have been hired for this emergency
on the other, W no could be made comfort
able and easily amenable to treatment
under the firm, vigorous discipline of the
hospital
Such aid to the physician is beyond tell
ing. There is probably nothing SO con-
ducive to the professional welfare and
standing OF the individual physician as
the hospital. Z There his Judgment is
broadened by the mature opinions of
other men, many Of them experts; there
his personal opinion has to stand the fire
of a staff criticism; there his diagnosis
must prove its right to stand or fall in the
presence OF men every whit as good as he
whose word they have come to establish
or overthrow. And il a school of nurses
is gathered, as would be inevitable, the
local physician must brush up his knowl-
edge and put it into proper form for the
daily lectures to an eager and critical
class. And what of the community at
large? Many OF the blessings of the hos
pital for the people have been suggested
in what has been written but not all.
Every general hospital gives free treat
ment to those who have not financial
strength to meet the demands of their case.
To feel that there are men and women in a
city or town who have ills from which
they suffer daily is pathetic; to be con-
scious that many OF those ills are entirely
durable by means OF proper treatment and
care and that the sufferers are unable to
secure either is infinitely pitiful; to have
an institution in our midst that could offer
both would be source of unbounded sat-
isfaction.
Also there are ever little children in the
city who suffer and die from the ignorance
and carelessness of their natural protec-
tors. Probably one-h half at least OF the sick
ness of childhood is avoidable, and much
OF the other half durable il sufficient means
for help were at hand. II the sick child of
your scrub-woman had the chance to get
we'll, health would be possible. A hospi-
tai gives the chance. There is another
class in the common life to which the hos
pital is truly house of mercyn. How
many young woman in the hour OF her
trial, shsmestrieken, helpless, has been
driven to desperation because there was
no friendly place to open its doors, no
home no refuge. But a hospital knows
nothing OF sin or fail. All who come to
Its doors are there to be healed; outcast
and pariah are as welcome as he who in his
noiseless motor car is brought to those
4 doors for the physical help which the
other has already sought and won. Cam
not something of that wise provision for
the future which is at work upon the in