Genre:

Regular Feature, Proceedings, Drollery

Subjects:

Hospitals, Patronage, Vaccination, Medical Treatment, Invention, Commerce, Quackery

    Notes the debate following William E Gladstone's budget speech, in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer discussed the sorry state of charities and accused hospitals of being 'mismanaged'. Points out that the St Bartholomew's Hospital 'trustees eat [the cost of treating] 150 patients at one luxurious dinner' (198). Later notes a discussion of the Vaccination Bill for Ireland, and suggests that 'Everybody is being vaccinated just now'. Thinks that it is sufficiently fashionable that an enterprising jeweller could make 'a Vaccination Bracelet, with a cow on it', an item that would sell particularly well if it were 'electrified, or fumigated, or magnetised, or blessed by the Pope, or quackified in some way'. (199)