Reminiscences of a medical life : with cases and practical illustrations / By Jonathan Toogood.

  • Toogood, Jonathan, 1784-1870.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reminiscences of a medical life : with cases and practical illustrations / By Jonathan Toogood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    20/214
    medicines which their cases may require, on payment of the weekly sum of Three Shillings. “ Persons desirous of Medical Assistance, whose health will not allow them to attend the Dispensary, may be visited at their respective abodes, as often as their cases may require, and every medicine supplied, for the sum of Five Shillings per week. “ %* All minor operations are included in the above charges.” [Whitby, Typ.] It cannot be imagined that either the College of Surgeons, or the Apothecaries’ Company, would ever have granted a licence to any applicant, could those bodies have contemplated such a degrading departure from their intentions. The heartless New Poor Law is indeed a heavy blow and great discouragement to the profession ; and, as the avowed ob- ject of Government was to save money, Commissioners, Boards of Guardians, and Ratepayers, eagerly joined the crusade against the medical staff. In some instances adventurers and men of inferior acquirements were employed, without due regard to their fitness or ability. An instance occurred within my own knowledge, in which an impostor was accepted by a Board, on the production of testimonials which were afterwards proved to have been forged. Abundant proof was given before a select committee of the House of Lords, of the misery, neglect, and painful loss of life, occasioned by contracting with such men, and compelling others to enter into engagements which they could not fulfill. All union medical officers, however, must not be included in this category; for it is well known that many honourable and well educated men submit to the arbitrary terms of the commissioners, at a certain loss, rather than incur the risk of a greater, by the introduction of an opponent. The fol- lowing case, which occurred in a union notorious for the perse- cution of its medical officers, is an example of the tyranny exercised over them. A woman, seventy-nine years of age, *vho had for many years a large ulcer in her leg, suffered a compound fracture of both bones. It was not to be expected that she could long survive such an injury, and the case proved fatal in a few days. The medical officer sent in to the Board the usual charge for com- pound fracture, which was refused. It happened that one of the