It is a strange contrast, this moving crowd of people, with their bright dresses and gay ribbons fluttering in the breeze; the smiling faces of girls and women amidst a toss and tangle of sea-blown tresses; the green sparkle of the sea beneath the shining sky; the voices of sailors, the shrill laughter of boys and girls coming from the sands below; the gleam of white sails; the flitting wings of fisher-birds; the gay tumult of the High Street; the traffic of hucksters of shells and toys—a strange contrast to the scene which may be witnessed in and around that large building which we passed only yesterday as the Margate boat stood off from Birchington, and passengers began to collect coats and bags and umbrellas as they saw friends awaiting them on the landing-stage of this very jetty.
It seems a week ago; and just as these few hours seem to have separated us far from yesterday's work, and the routine of daily life, does the short distance along the High Street and past the railway station seem to separate us by an indefinite distance from the sickness and pain that is yet in reality so near. Even as we think of it in this way, the division is less marked, the contrast not so strange, for in that building Faith, Hope, and Charity find expression, and bring a cheerful radiance to those who need the care of skilful hands and the sympathy of loving hearts.
The name of the place is known all over England, for within its walls are assembled patients who are brought from the great towns of different shires, as well as from mighty London itself, that they may be healed of that dread malady, the most potent cure for which is to take them from the close and impure atmosphere of their crowded homes, and exchange the stifled breath of courts and alleys for the boundless æther of the sea.
For the building, to visit which I am here to-day, is the "Royal Sea-Bathing Infirmary, or National Hospital for the Scrofulous Poor, near Margate," and there are at this moment 220 men, women, and children within its sheltering wards. Stay—let me be accurate. I said within its wards; but here, as I pass the gates and the unpretentious house of the resident surgeon to the broad sea front of the building, I note that under the protecting screen of the wall that bounds the wide space of grass-plot and gravel-paths a row of beds are placed, and in each of them a patient lies basking in the warm sunlit air; while a little band of convalescents saunter gently, some of them with the aid of crutch or stick, with the enjoyment of a sense of returning strength. If I mistake not, there are two or three "Bath chairs" crunching the gravel paths a little further on, and down below upon the space marked out and separated from the outer world upon the beach, the two bathing-machines of the establishment are occupied by those for whom convalescence is growing into health.[3]
The full meaning of such a change can only be realised by those who know how terrible a disease scrofula becomes, not only in the deadly insidious form of consumption, but in the various deformities and distortions of the limbs of which it is the cause; and in those cases where, to the pain and depression of the disorder itself is added some terrible affection of the skin, which the sensitive patient knows can scarcely fail to be repulsive to those who witness it, unless, indeed they have learnt to regard it only as a reason for deeper compassion and for more earnest consolation.
Almost every form of the disorder is to be seen out here in the wide northern area of this inclusive building, which has long ago been bought and paid for, along with the three acres of freehold ground on which it stands.
Of the deep sympathy with which it has been supported by those who early learned to take an interest in its beneficent work, the fountain which has been erected in the centre of the green to the memory of the late Rev. John Hodgson, one of its trustees, is a mute witness. Mr. Hodgson laboured earnestly to secure those casual interests which might be obtained from the vast number of persons who visit Margate every year. In order to make the most of small regular contributions, he appealed for "five shillings a year," and since his death in 1870 this fund has increased, so that in one year nearly 6,000 subscribers had contributed £1,405 7s. 4d. Never was holiday charity more appropriately applied, as anybody who will visit the institution itself may witness in those long wards beyond the open passage, to which the card of Dr. Rowe, one of the three visiting surgeons, has directed me.
Since the first establishment of the institution, seventy-seven years ago, when sixteen cases were treated as a beginning, above 29,000 patients, from London and all parts of the country, have received relief; and to-day the number in the institution (taking no account of a contingent of "out-patients") includes 42 men, 50 women, and 120 children, none of whom are local cases, but all from other parts of England, whence they come frequently from a long distance.
In each of the six wards, of which four are on the ground floor, there is a head-nurse and an assistant, with six helpers for the children's, and four for the adult department, beside the night nurses, who sit up in case of any emergency. There is accommodation for 250 sufferers and for the 40 nurses, attendants, and domestics required for the service of the hospital; so the 220 patients there now, represent the approaching period when a new wing will have to be added, even if only the urgent cases are to be admitted.
The year's list of occupants of the 250 beds shows a total of 721 patients, of whom 614 had been discharged in January, 399 being either cured or very greatly benefited, 171 decidedly benefited, and only 44 obviously uncured; a very large amount of actual gain to humanity, when we reflect on the conditions of the disease to remedy which the institution is devoted.