I am walking along the streets, and in doing so pass a scaffolding where
some new buildings are being erected. Suddenly I hear a shriek, and see
a small crowd collected. A beery Milesian, ascending a ladder with a hod
of mortar, slips and falls on the pavement below. He is a stranger in
London, has no friends, no money, scarcely any acquaintance. "What's his
name?" we ask. "He ain't got no name," says one of his mates; "we calls
him Carroty Bill." What's to be done? Why, take him to the hospital.
The police fetch a stretcher. "Carroty Bill" is raised on it, and a
small procession is formed. It swells as it goes along. The idle street
population joins. We form one. A medical student is in the rear; he
meets a chum, and exclaims exultingly, "They are taking him to our
hospital." The chum turns back, and the door is reached; admittance is
easy. Happily, the place is not a Government establishment, and patients
are received whilst there is hope. Poor "Carroty Bill," bruised and
bleeding, yet stupid with drink, is examined carefully by the attendant
surgeons. It is of no use asking him what's the matter; his expressions,
never very direct or refined, are now very muddy, and not a little
coarse. A careful diagnosis reveals the extent of the injuries received.
All that science can do for him is done. If he is taken as an inmate he
will have as good nursing and food, and as skilful care and as
unremitting attention, as if he were a prince of royal blood. Wonderful
places are these hospitals. If Sawney, subject to an unpleasant
sensation on the epidermis, blesses the memory of the good duke who
erected on his broad domain convenient posts, let us bless a thousandfold
the memory of Rahere, who obtained from Henry I. a piece of waste ground,
upon which he built a hospital (now known as St. Bartholomew's) for a
master, brethren, and sisters, sick persons, and pregnant women; or of
Thomas Guy, son of a lighterman in Horsleydown; but himself a bookseller
in Lombard-street after the Great Fire; or of the nameless Prior of
Bermondsey, who founded, adjoining the wall of his monastery, a house of
alms, now known as St. Thomas's Hospital. Likewise let us thankfully
record the gifts of the rich, of whose liberality such hospitals as those
of King's, and University, and Westminster, and the London, and St.
George's, are the magnificent results.
Now let us return to our friend Carroty Bill. As we have intimated, he
is in the ward appropriated to such cases. One of the professors is now
going his round, accompanied by his students. Let us go in. The first
thing that strikes us is the size, and cleanliness, and convenience of
the wards; how comfortable they are, how light, how cheerful, how lofty,
and well ventilated! Each patient is stretched on a clean bed, and at
the top are pinned the particulars of his case, and on a chair by his
side are the few little necessaries he requires. The practised physician
soon detects the disease and the remedies. His pupils are examined; the
patient forms the subject of a hasty lecture. One is asked what he would
do, another what disease such and such a symptom denotes; a word is
whispered to the nurse; the sick man, whose wistful eye hangs on every
movement, is bid to keep up his spirits, and he feels all the more
confident and the better fitted to struggle back to health for the few
short words of the professor, to whom rich men pay enormous fees, and
whose fame perhaps extends over the habitable globe. And so we pass on
from bed to bed. Occasionally the professor extracts a moral. This man
is dying of gin. "How much did you take a day?"--"Only a
quartern."--"And for how many years?"--"Seven." The professor shakes his
head--the students know that the man is past cure, that death is only a
question of time. A similar process is gone through on the women's ride,
and anxiously do sad eyes follow the little group as the professor and
students pass on, in their best way mitigating human agony, and bidding
the downcast hope. What tales might be told! Here lies down the
prodigal to die; here the village maid hides her shame beneath the dark
wings of death. Under these hospital walls--reared and maintained by
Christian charity, what men once proud, and rich, and great--what women
once tenderly nursed and slavishly obeyed--what beauties once fondly
caressed, old, withered, wan, without money and without friends, alone in
the bleak, bitter world--linger and pass away for ever.
Let us go down stairs, along that long passage through which eager
students are hurrying. The door opens, and we find ourselves in a
theatre, as full as it can possibly be of the future surgeons of England,
now very rough and noisy. At the bottom, far beneath us, is a small
space with a long narrow table, covered with oilskin; behind the table is
a door. That door opens, and one or two of the _elite_ of the students
known as dressers enter. A matronly female, dressed in the hospital
garb, follows; some stout porters bring in a poor creature gently, and
place him on the table, and a few professors and professional assistants
fill up the group; the noisy students are still and eager. The professor
advances to the table, in a few words explains the nature of the malady,
and the patient, more dead than alive, endeavours to nerve himself for
his impending fate. It is our old friend; his leg is smashed and
requires amputation. An assistant administers chloroform, while the
operator looks on, watch in hand. In a few seconds it is clear the
patient is insensible, and the knife is handed to the operator, who, with
his arm bare, and his sleeves tucked up, commences his painful task. Up
squirts the red blood, and many a pale face and averted eye around
testify how painful the exhibition is to those who are not accustomed to
it. Happily, the medical men near have the calm composure and readiness
of resource true science suggests. The first incision made, and the skin
peeled around, an assistant hands a saw, and in the twinkling of an eye
the limb is severed, and the stump, bleeding and smoking, is being sewn
up by skilful hands almost before the poor fellow wakes up, wearied and
exhausted by loss of blood, from what must have been to him, if we may
judge by his moans and exclamations, a terrible dream. As soon as
possible he is borne away, the blood is sponged up, the table wiped down;
and another patient, it may be a pale-faced girl or a little boy
suffering from some fatal malformation, succeeds. All that humanity can
suggest is resorted to. Here science loses her stern aspects, and beats
with a woman's tenderness and love; and not in vain, for from that table
rise, who otherwise would have painfully perished, many to bless their
families, it may be the world. But all is over, and we follow the crowd
out, avoiding that other passage leading to the dissecting-room, where on
many a table lie the mangled forms of what were once men and women, in
all stages of dissection and decay, with students hard at work on them,
painfully gathering or seeking to gather a clue to the mystery of
mysteries we call life. Possibly by the fire-place some half-dozen young
fellows will be smoking and drinking beer. But why note the contrast?
Out of the dissecting-room, beyond the narrow precincts of the hospital,
masked in gay clothes, with faces all red with paint and wrinkled with
idiotic leer, stand side by side the living and the dead.
* * * * *
The principal London Hospitals are the following:--1. St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, in West Smithfield, first founded in the twelfth century, and
refounded by Henry VIII. in 1546. The building, a spacious quadrangular
structure, is principally modern, having been finished in 1770. It makes
up 580 beds. In 1848,71,573 were relieved by this hospital, viz., 5,826
inpatients, 19,149 out-patients, and 46,598 casual ditto. Necessity is
the only recommendation to this institution; and patients are received
without limitation. The medical staff is equal to any in the metropolis.
The staircase was gratuitously painted by Hogarth. 2. Guy's Hospital,
St. Thomas's Street, Southwark, founded in 1721, contains accommodation
for 580 in-patients, and has an excellent museum and theatre of anatomy.
This magnificent hospital, which consists of two quadrangles and two
wings, was founded and endowed by Thomas Guy, a bookseller, who expended
18,793 pounds upon the building, and left 219,419 pounds for its
endowment--the largest sum, perhaps, that has ever been expended by any
individual on similar purposes. Recently, however, Guy's Hospital has
met with another benefactor, but little inferior, in point of liberality,
to its founder; a citizen, of the name of Thomas Hunt, having bequeathed
to it, in 1829, the princely sum of 200,000 pounds! The medical school
attached to this hospital, while under the superintendence of the late
Sir Astley Cooper, was one of the most extensive, and probably, also, the
best in the empire. 3. St. Thomas's Hospital, in High Street, Borough,
was formed out of two other charities by Edward VI., and rebuilt in 1693.
Additions were made in 1732, and a large part was rebuilt in 1836. It
contains 18 wards, and 428 beds. It has an income of about 25,000 pounds
a year, derived almost wholly from rents of estates in London and the
country. 4. St. George's Hospital, near Hyde Park Corner, lately
rebuilt, has a fine front, 200 feet in length, facing the Green Park. It
accommodates 460 in-patients. 5. The Middlesex Hospital, near Oxford
Street, founded in 1745, has 285 beds, and relieves numerous
out-patients. 6. London Hospital, in Whitechapel, was founded in 1740.
Its wards accommodate about 250 patients. 7. Westminster Hospital,
rebuilt in 1833, near the Abbey, has 174 beds; but three wards,
containing space for fifty additional beds, are unfurnished,
notwithstanding there is a great demand for hospital accommodation. 8.
The Marylebone and Paddington Hospital, opened in 1850, has 150 beds,
which it is proposed to increase to 376, supposing the necessary funds to
be forthcoming. This, and the four last mentioned hospitals, depend
wholly, or almost wholly, on voluntary subscriptions, which are said to
be very insufficient to meet the demands upon them. The University
College and King's College Hospitals, and Charing Cross Hospital, are
smaller establishments of the same nature, each accommodating about 120
patients, and there are other establishments of the same description.
Medical schools are connected with the above hospitals, in which lectures
are delivered by the officers, and which are attended by several hundreds
of students. Within the last few years the number of medical students
has considerably decreased.