It is an extraordinary fact that among the innumerable medical charities
with which this country abounds, there is not one for the help of those
who of all others most require succour, and who must die, and do die in
thousands, neglected, unaided. There are hospitals for the cure of every
possible ailment or disease known to suffering humanity, but not one for
the reception of persons past cure. There are, indeed, small charities
for incurables scattered over the country—like the asylum for a few
females afflicted with incurable diseases, at Leith, which was built,
and solely supported by Miss Gladstone; and a few hospital wards, like
the Cancer ward of Middlesex, and the ward for seven incurable patients
in the Westminster; but a large hospital for incurables, does not exist.
The case of a poor servant girl which lately came to our knowledge, is
the case of thousands. She was afflicted with a disease to which the
domestics of the middle classes, especially, are very liable—white
swelling of the knee. On presenting herself at the hospitals, it was
found that an operation would be certain death; and that, in short,
being incurable, she could not be admitted. She had no relations; and
crawling back to a miserable lodging, she lay helpless till her small
savings were exhausted. Privations of the severest kind followed; and
despite the assistance of some benevolent persons who learnt her
condition when it was too late, she died a painful and wretched death.
It is indeed a marvellous oversight of benevolence that sympathy should
have been so long withheld from precisely the sufferers who most need
it. Hopeless pain, allied to hopeless poverty, is a condition of
existence not to be thought of without a shudder. It is a slow journey
through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, from which we save even the
greatest criminals.
When the law deems it necessary to deprive a human being of life, the
anguish, though sharp, is short. We do not doom him to the lingering
agony with which innocent misfortune is allowed to make its slow descent
into the grave.