The children's hospital, the medical school and the public / by L. Emmett Holt.
- Luther Emmett Holt
- Date:
- [1913]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The children's hospital, the medical school and the public / by L. Emmett Holt. 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.
10/14 page 8
![[91] cleanliness in wards to prevent aerial infection through dust; constant care regarding towels, bath tubs, wash clothes, nap- kins, thermometers, and in fact everything which comes in contact with the patient. All of these things and many more which time does not permit me even to enumerate, indicate that in a hospital ward for infants we must aim at conditions which at present, in most institutions, are realized only in the surgical operating room. The susceptibility of these patients to infection is certainly comparable to persons with open wounds. You are thinking, perhaps, that what I have said is impractical or impossible, and that it would not be worth while. So surgeons once thought of rigid asepsis. Hospital work for infants is admittedly difficult. Unless it can be well done it should not be attempted; but when it is properly done, the results will bear comparison with those obtained in any other department of medicine. I have not time to dwell upon the necessity for the most ample provision for nurses, if such results as we have been contemplating are to be obtained. The needs of adult patients in this respect are no criterion. At least one nurse to three infants by day, and one to eight or nine at night are neces- sary even for patients not acutely ill. The conditions under which only successful hospital work for young children can be carried on impose certain limita- tions with regard to the size of such an institution. I do not believe that the best work is possible in hospitals of this class with three or four hundred beds. Several small ones would accomplish much more. The one hundred beds provided in this institution I do not think should be increased. This will provide probably an average number of seventy-five patients, which will furnish ample material for the instruction of students, and are all that can advantageously be cared for by a single medical head. This ward service should be supplemented by an out-patient department which .may be of indefinite size. On the part of hospital trustees and managers there is often a disposition to consider the size of the work done as a measure of usefulness. But it is the quality of the work by which a hospital should be judged, not the quantity, for if the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22447957_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
