On charitable and provident medical relief : a letter to Alderman Kenrick, Mayor of Birmingham / from Sampson Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On charitable and provident medical relief : a letter to Alderman Kenrick, Mayor of Birmingham / from Sampson Gamgee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The Health Committee of the Town are labouring in- defatigably, and have sought and obtained the assistance of the medical profession, in carrying out improvements for the benefit of the public health. It has imperceptibly come to pass that the Borough possesses a hospital for infectious cases supported by the rates. Possibly the time is not very far distant when on some I such principle as that governing the permissive legislation for free libraries, the community may be allowed to rate itself for sanitary purposes, in a more comprehensive manner than is now practicable. There can be no doubt that our sanitary rules and practices require codification and assimilation, and that simplicity, efficiency, and economy would result therefrom for the good of the whole community. But pending enquiry by the Imperial Legislature, there seems no sufficient reason why the local authorities, the managers of our Medical Charities, and of our Sick Societies, should not agree to examine the whole question of Provident and Chai’itable Medical Relief. In such an investigation there would be no lack of the friendly advice and co-operation of the great body of the medical practitioners, of whom a Quarterly Reviewer treating this subject has spoken, “as the most liberal profession in the world.” I am quite aware that the project involves so many questions, and touches so many interests, as to present numerous difficulties. I am equally confident that they will not prove insuperable, if approached without prejudice and with a firm resolve to deal justly with them. In the Annual Address “ On Our Medical Charities,” which I have already ventured to quote, I advocated a confer- ence between the authorities of all our Medical Charities. So far as the charities are concerned, the idea has been taken up in London, and it has been publicly stated that Sir Sidney Waterlow, as treasurer of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, has