[On provident dispensaries as a means for promoting the public health].

  • Christie, James, 1829-1892.
Date:
[1880]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [On provident dispensaries as a means for promoting the public health]. 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.

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    Dr llussell, in the paragraph quoted, writes with the view of calling public attention to the clamant necessity which exists for the extension and organization of our medical charities, so as to carry their benefits to the homes of the poor; and he calls atten- tion to the fact that 32,000 persons, outside the pauper circle, sufTered from various degrees of sickness, and received no medical aid, and that of these, 3,600 died in one year in this city, without having even so much attendance during their illness as would warrant a duly qualified medical practitioner granting a certificate as to the cause of death. Doubtless, a number of the deaths so registered would be cases of sudden death ; but, were even such cases eliminated, the general deduction to be derived from the facts would not be materially altered. The percentage of uncertified deaths in Glasgow during the year 1878 was considerably less than during 1874, being 13 as compared with 22 ; but we are still confronted with the same class of facts. These 1,646 cases of death, regarding which it was avowed there had been no medical aid whatever; those 552 cases in which the medical men refused to certify as not having at- tended the cases; and the 1,403 children whose only medical at- tendance consisted in being carried to a public dispensary or a doctor’s shop, all belong to the class which I have introduced to your notice—viz., the class comprehended within the 40s. per week area. To the question, therefore, does this class require any extraneous aid in the form of medical attendance, wo have a response in the affirmative from 3,600 graves in one year, and from 32,000 sick beds at least. What is the meaning of these figures 1 The 3,600 dead, and 32,000 sick, were not isolated human beings—strangers in our midst. They represent a class, probably a large class, every one of which is being gradually drawn into the same vortex of misery. The 3,600 of one year are replaced by 3,600 the next year, and we may well ask from whence are the recruits drawn. rl hey come, I doubt not, in many instances, from among tho respectable working-classes, whose misfortunes were greater than they were able to bear ; for the death of a parent often means the ruin of a family, and the death of children quite as often means the ultimate pauperization of parents ; they come also from among the respect- able but improvident, who live from hand to mouth, and make no provision for tho future; they come also from tho ranks of the reckless and the improvident, whose chief anxiety is how to avoid the