I
Unhappy invalids who must seek shelter in the hospital, and drag themselves feebly through those long wards where quiet has reigned for centuries, only broken by the sobs and cries of those poor wretches who come to lie down within these walls, as in the common tomb of the homeless!
How depressed they are when they leave their family and note the sadness of the place, advance sighing towards an unfamiliar bed, while around them they see all the ills which misery begets, and breathe the oppressive air of that pity which has gathered them together!
The new-comers at once recognise those more dangerously ill, even though they are at some distance, because the physicians stay longer beside them, watching them, the assistants and nurses are occupied with them. Then the bell for the viaticum rings; all who are able rise to their feet; then the extreme unction—then the rattling in the throat in the death-agony. And when at last they see the curtains drawn around the bed, a low, trembling whisper passes the sad news from mouth to mouth, to the most remote corners of the ward, beyond the dim rays of the funeral torch shining in the night like the last flicker of life in a body waxing cold for ever.
In their morning round the physicians find that the serious cases have grown worse, while those who are better beg to be dismissed. But it is in the women’s ward that similar sad circumstances cause the most alarming effects. The physician who has the night-watch must walk up and down the whole night, prescribing soothing draughts and cordials, without his presence or his words of comfort preventing convulsive attacks or fainting fits.
Many patients die in the hospitals from fear and depression who would probably have recovered had they been tended in their own homes.
We must hope that thrift may so increase that the poorest working-man may have a cleanly house in which he may be nursed by his family when he falls ill, and that public benevolence may erect modest houses for those unhappy ones in need of succour, where the patient may enjoy efficacious scientific aid, and those comforts which the advance of hygiene demands, and be spared the heart-rending sights and injurious effects of the old hospitals.