Volume 1

An appeal to the public in behalf of a hospital for sick children.

  • Great Ormond Street Hospital
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An appeal to the public in behalf of a hospital for sick children. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    wider views, will not fail to find this additional advantage in the intended Institution, that it is calculated to benefit the community at large, by furnishing means for the plentiful supply of an article which is as much prized by the rich as the poor,—I mean improved medical knowledge. It will, I think, be admitted by most medical men, that owing to the want of proper schools for studying and teaching the diseases of children, in this country, the knowledge of this class of affections is less advanced among the members of the profession generally, than is that of the diseases of adults. If this be so, the public must be proportionate sufferers. It would, therefore, seem but reasonable that the public, from merely selfish motives, should countenance a measure like the present, which tends almost as much to their own advantage as to that of the poor. But be this as it may, no one, I think, can contest the general principle that the establishment of a Children’s Hos¬ pital in London, while proving an inestimable boon to the sufferers themselves and their distressed parents, must also tend greatly to the advancement of medical knowledge in the important department of Infantile Diseases. In making these latter remarks, I assume, that it is the intention of the Bounders of the new Hospital to admit pupils to its wrards, and to institute. Clinical Lectures for their instruction; without both of which provisions, I, for one, should consider that the charity only fulfilled half its duties, by withholding half of the advantages it is calculated to bestow. I am, faithfully yours, JOHN FORBES.
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