Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Hospitals, Disease, Death, Medical Treatment

    Links the high child mortality rate in London to the fact that 'these tender and delicate beings have never had their constitutions sufficiently studied' and that medical men 'have not had opportunities of sufficiently investigating the amazing rapidity and virulence of infantile disorders'. Shocked by the fact that 'until a few years ago' there was no children's hospital in London and goes on to describe the foundation of the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street. Praises the hospital for giving to children 'impressions of beauty, piety, and comfort', 'kind and gentle nursing', and 'all the alleviation science can bring on their often painful complaints'. (350) Notes that the hospital has given 'medical men' increased opportunities to study 'every variety of infantile disease'. Calls on readers to donate money to the hospital whose 'powers of usefulness' are 'limited by want of funds'. (351)