Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Hospitals, Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Class, Status, Pharmaceuticals, Surgery, Anaesthesia, Machinery, Patronage

    Gives a rare glimpse of the interior of one of 'our metropolitan hospitals', the 'external aspect' of which is 'familiarly known to all who are accustomed to traverse the streets of London' (462). Describes the arrangement of the admissions ward at St Bartholomew's Hospital, noticing that 'the medical and surgical staff of the hospital [...] are men of great eminence, holding the first rank in their profession, so that the poorest man, woman, or child that seeks for help is given the benefit of the best advice in the kingdom, and [...] is enabled gratuitously to command services which many a wealthy man cannot purchase' (463). Also comments that 'the dread operation-room' was 'once the theatre of agony almost too great for the human frame to endure, but [is] now shorn of half its terrors by the blessed influence of chloroform' (472). Concludes by pressing the hospital's 'claims to consideration on the part of the wealthy and benevolent' (477).