If out of 721 cases 399 are either cured or have received such marked benefit as to render their ultimate cure highly probable, it is an achievement worthy of the earnest work of which it is the result, a contribution to beneficent efforts well worth the £7,966 which has necessarily been expended in the provision, not only of the appliances which give comfort and rest, but of the generous food and drink which, with the glorious air from the sea, is the medicine necessary to build up the feeble frames and renew the impoverished blood of those to whom meal-times come to be welcome events in the day, instead of merely languid observances.
Down in the kitchen, with its great cooking range and its capacious boilers, there are evidences of that "full diet" which is characteristic of the place; and it is difficult to decide which are the most suggestive, the long row of covered japanned jugs which hang conveniently to the dresser-shelf, and are used for the conveyance of "gravy," or the mighty milk-cans standing in a corner, ready to be taken away when the evening supply comes in from the Kentish dairies. Half a pound of cooked meat for dinner is the daily allowance for each man and for every boy over fourteen years of age, while women and girls receive six ounces, and children four ounces. Breakfast consists of coffee and bread-and-butter, varied in the afternoon by tea, and supper of bread and cheese for adults, and bread and butter for children. Roast and boiled meat is served on alternate days, with accompanying vegetables, and there are three "pudding days" for those who can manage this addition to the fare; while every man and woman may have a pint of porter, and each child a pint of table ale, at the discretion of the doctors. This, of course, represents the ordinary diet, in which specific differences are made for special cases where other or daintier food is required. Perhaps I should have said that this is the scale adopted in the refectory, a large airy room, to the long table in which the patients who are able to "get about" are now advancing with a cheerful premonition of dinner. There is no space to spare, and there are at present no funds to spend in additional building, so that this great airy refectory is used as chapel and assembly room. The Bread of Life, as well as the temporal bread, is distributed here; and those who would object to the necessity may either contribute to build another room, or may come and learn how every meal in such a place, and for such a cause as this, should become a sacrament. Many varieties of the forms taken by scrofulous disease may be seen here; and yet the hopeful looks, the cheerful influence of the bright summer weather, the green glimpses of the sea through doors and windows, and the fresh bracing air, impart to these sufferers an expressive lively briskness, which somehow removes the more painful impressions with which we might expect to witness such an assembly.
It is so perhaps in a still greater measure in these large airy wards, where children sit or lie upon the beds, some of them wholly or partially dressed, where the disease has produced only deformities under surgical treatment, or such forms of skin disease as affect the face. Of the latter there are some very severe and obstinate cases, and from these the unaccustomed visitor can scarcely help turning away, but often only to re-turn, and mark how cheerfully and with what a vivid alacrity the little patients move and play, and look with eager interest on all that is going on. For here—in the boys' ward—there is no repression of youthful spirits, so that they be kept within the bounds of moderate decorum, nor do the patients themselves seem to feel that they are objects of melancholy commiseration. To speak plainly, even the worst cases are not reminded that there are people who may be revolted at their affliction. Indeed I, who am tolerably accustomed to many experiences that might be strange to others, am rather taken aback by one little "case," whose face and limbs, though apparently healed, have been so deeply seamed and grooved by the disorder, which must have claimed him from babyhood, that he has evidently learned to regard himself as an important surgical specimen, and, on my approach to his bed, begins with deliberate satisfaction to divest himself of his stockings, in order to exhibit his legs. Hip and spinal disease are among the most frequent and often the most fatal forms of scrofula. One boy, with delicate and regular features, his fragile hand only just able to clasp in the fingers the small present I am permitted to offer him, shows the shadow of death upon his face. In his case the disorder has shown itself to be beyond medical, as it has already been beyond surgical aid, and his short hurried breathing denotes that before the summer days have been shortened by the autumn nights, and the leaves are lying brown and sere, he will be in a better and a surer home, and healed for evermore.
It will be a peaceful end, no doubt, and he will yet have strength enough to be taken home to die, where other than strangers' hands will minister to him at the last, but not more tenderly, it may be, than those that smooth his pillow to-day.
As we leave the boys' wards—clean, and bright, and fresh as they are—we encounter a cosy little party of juvenile convalescents, who are comfortably seated on the door-mat, engaged in a stupendous game of draughts.
There is more of beauty than deformity, more of life than of death, more perhaps of living eager interest than of sadness and sorrow to be seen here, after all; and this is particularly remarkable in the large-windowed spacious ward where the girls can look fairly out upon the gleaming sea. Properly enough, the room occupied by these young ladies has been made more ornamental than that of the boys. The walls are gay with coloured prints, and there are flowers, and a remarkably cheerful three-sided stove, which gives the place an air of comfort, though, of course, it has now no fire in it. Then some of the girls (with those thoughtful delicate faces and large wistful inquiring eyes which are so often to be observed among lame people) are engaged in fancy needlework as they lie dressed upon the beds to which they are at present mostly confined, because of deformities of the feet or legs requiring surgical treatment. There is a library (which needs replenishing), from which patients are allowed to take books; and those children who are able to leave the wards, and are not suffering from illness, are taught daily by a schoolmaster and a schoolmistress, while a visiting chaplain is of course attached to the hospital.
[3] This was written in the latter part of July, 1874.
BLESSING THE LITTLE CHILDREN.
