Sanitary economics: or, our medical charities, as they are, and as they ought to be / [Alexander Patrick Stewart].

  • Alexander Patrick Stewart
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sanitary economics: or, our medical charities, as they are, and as they ought to be / [Alexander Patrick Stewart]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sorts of provident institutions; and that is a very false philanthropy, which would deter us, by the ready and popular cry of hard-heartedness, from seeking to develop these energies to the uttermost. A procedure this, which is in the highest degree compatible with a liberal and generous treatment of the deserving poor. But what shall we say of the second class ? Why, that many of them—I can depone to the fact—have long withstood the temptation held out to them by the dispensary,—have availed them¬ selves of it only after a painful struggle with their own inclinations, and would never have done so had there been any via media between private attendance and the receipt of alms. Often have I been spontaneously told, “ Indeed, Sir, we have always paid for attendance till now, and we didn’t like to send to the dispensary; but we’ve been forced to it, for we couldn’t pay any longer.” But this is the first step of the “facilis descensus; ” they have no scruple in returning to the dispensary, though a recurrence of sickness should find them improved in circumstances. This, however, it must be confessed, is seldom the case; for, once fairly reconciled to the idea of receiving public charity, the benevolent society or the parish is thenceforward too often looked upon as superseding the necessity of economy and forethought, and as the appropriate refuge in any season of temporary pressure. As regards this and the third class cf cases, I am persuaded, from instances that have come under my own observation, that thoughtless benevolence does much harm by actually
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