[Report of a meeting. Begins] At a meeting of the medical and surgical practitioners of Leicester ... March 17th, 1826, to take into consideration the propriety of establishing district dispensaries [as proposed by H.L. Smith].

Date:
1826]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report of a meeting. Begins] At a meeting of the medical and surgical practitioners of Leicester ... March 17th, 1826, to take into consideration the propriety of establishing district dispensaries [as proposed by H.L. Smith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not extended itself towards those immediately engaged in its employments, who from a variety of causes have not, to an adequate extent, partaken of the benefits which have been received from the institution of hospitals and infirmaries. Of all the forms of relief to the poor under sickness and disease, there are none that afford so much ready and essential aid as infirmaries* or dispensaries, which certainly at the least expense can distribute to the poor, medicine enough for their necessities, and afford them under the most dangerous and painful operations all that humanity can require, by associating the skill and talent of the regularly educated professional men of the vicinity. They are of easy access, and give opportunities of checking in its first advance the progress of disease. They do not separate, as hospitals do, the invalid from his family, nor during a protracted illness, or a still more protracted convales¬ cence, occasion any feelings of dread and anxiety in the patient as to the discharge of the apothecary’s bill. Free from every * expense of this kind, and assured that none can be incurred, the patient readily and willingly submits to any plans that may be suggested to him, and which, in the present improved state of * P. I. G. Carbanis—-Coup d’Oeil sur les Revolutions et sur la Reforme de la Medicin— particularly insists on the advantages of Clinical Institutions, as the sine qua non of useful instruction. 44 There, and there only, the student becomes conversant with the essential object of his labours ; the teacher can point out and accurately determine what must be examined and recognized in actual practice ; and there only, the method of observing can be traced in its elements. The Greeks taught medicine at the bed of the sick ; the Romans and Arabs enjoyed the same advantage; and among the moderns, the school of Vienna and Edinburgh have been the first to avail themselves of that most important part of medical instruction. 44 The philosophic zeal of Joseph II. rendered the school of Vienna superior to every thing which had been before conceived ; that of Edinburgh, rendered conspicuous almost all at once, by a re-union of eminent men, has not only appeared in the greatest possible splendour, but has in fact formed a number of excellent practitioners, many of whom are now rendering the greatest services to humanity in every part of the world.” M. Carbanis observes farther,that the practice of medicine is reduced to a few formulae, by judicious and intelligent practitioners in the Country and in Hospitals; whilst it is obliged to multiply and to vary its resources in the treatment of patients devoted to study, to business, or to the pleasures of refined life.
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