Haslar Hospital at Portsmouth is a great rambling barrack-looking block of brick building, with a yard or square surrounded by high walls in front, and with two wings extending from behind, which, with the chapel between, form another and smaller square.
There are seldom fewer than a thousand patients within, and, independent of a whole regiment of male and female nurses, sick-bay-men, servants, cooks, et id genus omne, there is a regular staff of officers, consisting of a captain—of what use I have yet to learn—two medical inspector-generals, generally three or four surgeons, the same number of regularly appointed assistant-surgeons, besides from ten to twenty acting assistant-surgeons (Note 1) waiting for appointments, and doing duty as supernumeraries. Of this last class I myself was a member.
Soon as the clock tolled the hour of eight in the morning, the staff-surgeon of our side of the hospital stalked into the duty cabin, where we, the assistants, were waiting to receive him. Immediately after, we set out on the morning visit, each of us armed with a little board or palette to be used as a writing-desk, an excise inkstand slung in a buttonhole, and a quill behind the ear. The large doors were thrown open, the beds neat and tidy, and the nurses “standing by.” Up each side of the long wards, from bed to bed, we journeyed; notifying the progress of each case, repeating the treatment here, altering or suspending it there, and performing small operations in another place; listening attentively to tales of aches and pains, and hopes and fears, and just in a sort of general way acting the part of good Samaritans. From one ward to another we went, up and down long staircases, along lengthy corridors, into wards in the attics, into wards on the basement, and into wards below ground,—fracture wards, Lazarus wards, erysipelas wards, men’s wards, officers’ wards; and thus we spent the time till a little past nine, by which time the relief of so much suffering had given us an appetite, and we hurried off to the messroom to breakfast.
The medical mess at Haslar is one of the finest in the service. Attached to the room is a nice little apartment, fitted up with a bagatelle-table, and boxing gloves and foils ad libitum. And, sure enough, you might walk many a weary mile, or sail many a knot, without meeting twenty such happy faces as every evening surrounded our dinner-table, without beholding twenty such bumper glasses raised at once to the toast of Her Majesty the Queen, and without hearing twenty such good songs, or five times twenty such yarns and original bons-mots, as you would at Haslar Medical Mess. Yet I must confess we partook in but a small degree indeed of the solemn quietude of Wordsworth’s—
”—Party in a parlour cramm’d,
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent—and all damned.”
I do not deny that we were a little noisy at times, and that on several occasions, having eaten and drunken till we were filled, we rose up to dance, and consequently received a polite message from the inspector whose house was adjoining, requesting us to “stop our confounded row;” but then the old man was married, and no doubt his wife was at the bottom of it.
Duty was a thing that did not fall to the lot of us supers every day. We took it turn about, and hard enough work it used to be too. As soon as breakfast was over, the medical officer on duty would hie him away to the receiving-room, and seat himself at the large desk; and by-and-bye the cases would begin to pour in. First there would arrive, say three or four blue-jackets, with their bags under their arms, in charge of an assistant-surgeon, then a squad of marines, then more blue-jackets, then more red-coats, and so the game of rouge-et-noir would go on during the day. The officer on duty has first to judge whether or not the case is one that can be admitted,—that is, which cannot be conveniently treated on board; he has then to appoint the patient a bed in a proper ward, and prescribe for him, almost invariably a bath and a couple of pills. Besides, he has to enter the previous history of the case, verbatim, into each patient’s case-book, and if the cases are numerous, and the assistant-surgeon who brings them has written an elaborate account of each disease, the duty-officer will have had his work cut out for him till dinner-time at least. Before the hour of the patient’s dinner, this gentleman has also to glance into each ward, to see if everything is right, and if there are any complaints. Even when ten or eleven o’clock at night brings sleep and repose to others, his work is not yet over; he has one other visit to pay any time during the night through all his wards. Then with dark-lantern and slippers you may meet him, gliding ghost-like along the corridors or passages, lingering at ward doors, listening on the staircases, smelling and snuffing, peeping and keeking, and endeavouring by eye, or ear, or nose, to detect the slightest irregularity among the patients or nurses, such as burning lights without orders, gambling by the light of the fire, or smoking. This visit paid, he may return to his virtuous cabin, and sleep as soundly as he chooses.
Very few of the old surgeons interfere with the duties of their assistants, but there be men who seem to think you have merely come to the service to learn, not to practise your profession, and therefore they treat you as mere students, or at the best hobble-de-hoy doctors. Of this class was Dr Gruff, a man whom I would back against the whole profession for caudle, clyster, castor-oil, or linseed poultice; but who, I rather suspect, never prescribed a dose of chiretta, santonin, or lithia-water in his life. He came to me one duty-day, in a great hurry, and so much excited that I judged he had received some grievous bodily ailment, or suffered some severe family bereavement.
“Well, sir,” he cried; “I hear, sir, you have put a case of ulcer into the erysipelas ward.”
This remark, not partaking of the nature of question, I thought required no answer.