On state medicine in Great Britain and Ireland / by Henry W. Rumsey.

Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On state medicine in Great Britain and Ireland / by Henry W. Rumsey. 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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    of Mr. Rausome's Committee), but also, and mainly, to secure a more accurate and trustworthy determination of the causes of death, a more satisfactory performance of medico-legal investigations, a supply of more reliable medical evidence in coroners' inquests and courts of law, and to provide generally for scientific advice and aid to local authorities in matters of public health. These objects are comprehended in, and consti- tute the main elements of, ivhat we call State Medicine. Historically and practically, most of these duties arise out of public arrangements for the medical relief of the poor. It was in this department of public medicine, and in the hos- pitals and dispensaries of the kingdom, that medical men became acquainted with the extent and depth of the physical misery and degradation of our common humanity. Here was learnt, here is to be learnt, the condition of the masses— of the living and dying, the healthy and diseased. Here are trained the men who might afterwards become the most useful Physicians of the State, the 'Aa-KXrjTrtoi TroXtrtKoi of Plato— oaoi irXeiaTOvg fjLtv vyiaivovg, TrXeiarovg voo-wSf fiiTEx^ipiaavTo.'' And thus it is that, from the Stygian realms of destitution and dissoluteness and disease, uprises the cor- rective agency, empowered to vindicate the primal laws of public order and public health. In no country, I may here observe, does this elevation of object, this transition from the merely palliative to the really preventive, appear to be so easy of execution and so promising of success as in Ireland, the dispensary system of which is probably the best in Europe, and, happily for London, has recently been adopted by the President of the Poor-law Board as the model for his new organisation of medical relief. It is my present purpose to call attention to some of the more remarkable defects and anomalies of our public arrange- ments, and then to show how, under existing circumstances, the primary objects of preventive and legal medicine might be best attained.
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