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.
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![[92] care' of healthy infants should be established as a constituent part of the hospital. The need of the public in this respect is so great that the opportunities which the hospital affords to give this instruction should be utilized. This is a by-product of hospital organization and operation that is of great im- portance, and will prove of advantage to an institution needing public support. The educational value to the public of an up-to-date special hospital like this can hardly be exaggerated. It is destined * to take its place among the great forces for social uplift in the department of child welfare. The City of Baltimore should have as much interest in its development and as much pride in its success as the medical school. The people of the community will need to be educated up to the advantages which the hospital offers over the home, especially the homes of the poor, for very sick children. With many of this class a prejudice against the hospitals, born of ignorance, must be overcome before they will consent to entrust their children to its care. To gain confidence is a matter which takes time, but the establishing with parents and relatives the most friendly and sympathetic relations is something, the impor- tance of which every one connected with the hospital as super- intendent, doctor, nurse, or employee should appreciate. It has to do with the practical success of the institution in many ways. Upon no one thing does the accurate diagnosis of disease depend so much as upon autopsies. The facilities which the hospital affords for seeing autopsies constitute one of its greatest uses. I know of children’s hospitals where these are permitted upon less than 10 per cent of the fatal cases. What a loss to science this represents. For the medical staff and students who have long watched an obscure condition go on to a fatal termination, not to have an opportunity to clear up the mystery is most discouraging. In another institution with which I am personally connected, consent foT autopsy is obtained in 70 per cent of the cases; and this has been accomplished largely through the influences which I have just suggested. The hospital occupies a place in modern civilization of steadily increasing influence and importance. On the one side](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22447957_0014.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
