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AN APPEAL TO THE WHOLE PROFESSION.
AN APPEAL
TO. THE WHOLE PROFESSION.
635
with considerable distaste of the proficiency in physicians and surgeons attending the cases. The the art of begging to which the voluntary hospitals cost of new buildings and extension of accommodation had attained of late years. Never had donations to should be met by a State subsidy, without State hospitals been so lavish, and yet all the large voluntary control. A central governing body should be formed hospitals were in debt, depending on " maudlin to coordinate the work of the voluntary and municipal advertisement and the undignified clowning of students hospitals in order to prevent duplication of apparatus, in the streets " to keep them open. He described the and to organise the greatest mass efficiency with the methods used as mendicancy, but by the end of his least possible expenditure. The cottage hospitals, - enumeration they had assumed the proportions of particularly, should be affiliated to some larger highway robbery. That students do not consider a hospital, so that operations and treatment beyond hospital collection to derogate from their dignity, and their capacities would never have to be undertaken by that the public is placidly amenable to this financial general practitioners in outlying. districts. All this bludgeoning he thinks beside the point. Certainly could be accomplished by an extension of the insurance there is no escaping from the fact that the present system, and a demand for reform should come first system leads to duplication of expensive apparatus in from the medical profession. But nothing, he all the large hospitals, and that the demands of concluded, could be done until the sentimental idea acientific medicine for elaborate equipment increase of the voluntary system had been abandoned-an yearly. This is responsible for the enormous expendi- idea so false that the very name was ironical. ture ; the requirements of a well-organised hospital have reached a complexity which it is beyond the powers of philanthropy to satisfy, and the testimony AN APPEAL TO THE WHOLE PROFESSION.
spoke
,
.
1 See also THE LANCET, 1928, i., 251.
W.1.
TO. THE WHOLE PROFESSION.
635
with considerable distaste of the proficiency in physicians and surgeons attending the cases. The the art of begging to which the voluntary hospitals cost of new buildings and extension of accommodation had attained of late years. Never had donations to should be met by a State subsidy, without State hospitals been so lavish, and yet all the large voluntary control. A central governing body should be formed hospitals were in debt, depending on " maudlin to coordinate the work of the voluntary and municipal advertisement and the undignified clowning of students hospitals in order to prevent duplication of apparatus, in the streets " to keep them open. He described the and to organise the greatest mass efficiency with the methods used as mendicancy, but by the end of his least possible expenditure. The cottage hospitals, - enumeration they had assumed the proportions of particularly, should be affiliated to some larger highway robbery. That students do not consider a hospital, so that operations and treatment beyond hospital collection to derogate from their dignity, and their capacities would never have to be undertaken by that the public is placidly amenable to this financial general practitioners in outlying. districts. All this bludgeoning he thinks beside the point. Certainly could be accomplished by an extension of the insurance there is no escaping from the fact that the present system, and a demand for reform should come first system leads to duplication of expensive apparatus in from the medical profession. But nothing, he all the large hospitals, and that the demands of concluded, could be done until the sentimental idea acientific medicine for elaborate equipment increase of the voluntary system had been abandoned-an yearly. This is responsible for the enormous expendi- idea so false that the very name was ironical. ture ; the requirements of a well-organised hospital have reached a complexity which it is beyond the powers of philanthropy to satisfy, and the testimony AN APPEAL TO THE WHOLE PROFESSION.
spoke
,
.
1 See also THE LANCET, 1928, i., 251.
W.1.