The Poor Law Medical Officers' Association. Quarterly address.

Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Poor Law Medical Officers' Association. Quarterly address. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    as efficient as it can possibly be made; and, in order to show tliat I do not stand alone in this opinion, I may mention that Dr. Wallace, Dr. Rumsey, Mr. J. P. Gilbert, Dr. Griffin, Mr. Garrett, Eev. E. J. Howman, Mr. Taylor, Dr. Boyd, the Eev. G. Kingsley, and Mr. Carter, gave evidence before that Committee, which in every respect bears out what I have always contended for as necessary. But, before leaving this section of the subject, let me just remind you that, in our country villages and small provincial towns, there are no out patients' departments of hospitals, no charitable dis- pensaries, such as exist in large cities ; and so the poor, when sick, are wholly dependent on the parish doctor; and he too possibly is a gentleman who has to keep a horse, find all drugs and appliances, from a stipend not sufficient in many instances to pay for either the horse, or the medicine. You are aware that on previous occasions I have quoted statistics derived from the Annual Eeports of the Poor Law Board, and contrasted them with others derived from the returns of the Irish Commissioners. My references have been made to the last eighteen years; for the reason that in 1852 the Medical Charities Act was put in operation; and from that date we have had an opportunity of comparing the results of two systems of medical relief, differing as widely one from the other as it is possible to imagine in the same empire. Now what have really been the peculiar advantages of the Irish system ? I have shown that, im- mediately after it began fairly to work, the expenditure on pauperism fell off, until in 1859 it absolutely became less than half what it was in 1852. I have also pointed out that, from the same date in England it rose almost continuously, until, in 1859, when it was at its lowest in Ireland, it was £666,000 more than it was in 1852. Now it is true, since 1859 the expenditure on Irish pauperism has increased, and that in 1868 it amounted to £334,271 above that of 1859 ; but in the same interval it has gone up in this country £1,839,372, or nearly six times as much as in Ireland, when on the population rate it should have been only 3|; that is, if no disturbing element had existed to