Medical and surgical establishments of the infirmary.

Date:
[1828?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical and surgical establishments of the infirmary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    13/22
    he must in reality study Surgery, for a year previous, in order that he may become fitted for the high eminence he is one day to attain. This precious piece of humbuggery evidently proceeds on an entire ignorance of the functions of a Physician's Clerk, and v^^ere altogether unworthy of notice except for its mis- chief, and that it affords an opportunity of explaining the real nature, and importance of such functions. To every Physician of an Hospital, as well as the patients under his charge, a good Clerk is of the first importance, as will appear from the bare recital of his duties. It is, in the first place, his business to engross into the register an accurate statement of the case of every medical patient that enters the house; and the commencing prescriptions of the Physician are founded mainly on that statement. He must, farther, report from day to day, whatever change occurs in each sick per- son ; he must study the disease of each, and render himself acquainted with the views of the Physician regarding it, so as to be able to prescribe, in need be, in his absence; he must take care that the nurses do their duty; that the diseased receive, and take, their medicines, the effects of which he must detail, and record in the register: in short, he has charge of the whole inmates of his wards, and must watch over their welfare by day, and night. His superintendence even exceeds that of the Physician himself; the latter visits generally only * once a day, the clerk remains their guardian during three and twenty out of each four and twenty hours. Whoever attends to these various and complicated duties, will easily perceive that they are quite sufficient to occupy the whole time and attention of the young functionary, more especially as the individuals under his management amount, as they often do, to fifty or sixty, and that he has little leisure for Surgical studies, which are far better pursued separately, and the argument acquires additional strength, in case he be attending, as frequently happens, some of the classes in the University. But this point has already been so fully explained as to require no further illustration. Our Infirmary customs regarding the Clerks therefore ought to be altered, nor is it difficult to discover what the reforms