Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Village hospitals / Andrew Wynter. 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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![cottage; but imagine a poor wretch with a fractured leg, or some accident involving the nervous system, shut up in the single sleeping-room of his cottage with noisy children, subject to the barbarous, be- cause Untutored, nursing of his wife. In either • cpse, his chances of making a rapid recovery are not ' encouraging. If taken to the nearest town hospital, often from fifteen to twenty miles’ distance, in a rough cart, the injury necessarily becomes so aggra- vated, that in many cases, the limb is lost, and, with the limb, the patient’s life, as the atmospheric con- ditions of large towns are always adverse to the recovery of unacclimatised country patients. If, on ‘Hie other hand, he is left to the better air of his cottage, he is, possibly, miles away from his doctor; and a case that requires watching every hour, under the be^t circumstances gets a visit from that nard-worked! individual once a day. It wTas not an unnatural idea that led Mr. Napper, of Cranley, to 'the‘conclusion that wre might bring the hospital system1, so to speak, to the door of the poor man, and—a matter of no less importance—to his own door also. The Rector of the parish, the Rev. J. H. Sapte, worthily seconded him by giving him a pottage rent-free, which, with the aid of the neigh- bouring gentry, was furnished and fitted up to receive six patients. As this hospital is the model on which all the subsequent establishments have jheen founded, it may be as well to describe it. The outside the photographic art pictures for us at a stroke. (See p. 352). It is a Surrey cottage, and nothing more, with a sound roof and sound walls. The interior is in the same homely style. The walls are whitewashed, the ground-floor is paved with brick : even the gudeman is sitting by the fireside, taking his rest after his day’s labour; for the woman who attends to the patients is wisely permitted to have the “ encumbrance ” of a husband. There is a patent kitchener, it is true, but this is provided for the convenience of cooking, or for the purpose of supplying a hot bath, which we see through the half-open door of a closet. In the sitting-room there is a poor boy playing on the floor, suffering from a disease in the bone of his leg. He looks very unlike the poor squalid town child, under such cir- cumstances, primly sitting on his bed. At the side is a little room, in w7hich the doctor sees out-patients. Upstairs are the wards for men and women. They can boast nothing beyond those in the simplest cot- tage, but they are scrupulously clean, and you can see that, where possible, ventilation is carried out. The nurse is a better-class countrywoman. Her homely gown, her homely speech, remind the poor sufferer of those he has left behind. He looks out of the latticed window upon a little garden, and when the wind blowTs, the roses tap against the window-pane. We miss altogether the long prim ward, the prim nurse, the bare, dismal walls of the regular hos- pital. The patient, if his anguish would only leave him at ease, feels as much at home as though he were visiting a friend’s cottage, and he entirely ^ses the idea, so painfully thrust upon him in the regular hospital, that he lias ceased to become a i man, and is simply looked upon as a disease. Can j the reader wonder at the repugnance of the coun- j tryman to be in a town hospital, when he knows i that he will no longer be John Stiles, but “a case of necrosis,” or “a fatty tumour”? Is it strange ] that he loses his identity when mixed up with a loug row of sufferers, upon whom a grim silence is enjoined ; that he longs for the sight of a familiar , face amid the crowd of students, who watch him as ! they would watch the experiments made upon a |1 mouse in the exhausted bell-glass of a lecturer; , and, finally, is it surprising that poor Hodge, when hit hard, begs the doctor to let him die at home, f where at least he has friendly sympathy ? Such a home, socially, is the Village Hospital, with the addition of all the appliances of art necessary to his j case, and the doctor within call when his services are required. That the scheme was a success the moment it was practically at work was only a consequence of the simplicity of its arrangements, and its harmony with all the previous habits of the patients. At the outset it was determined that no cases should be admitted that could be ! treated at their own homes, and that, as far as possible, the hospital should be self-supporting, j The Englishman, untouched by the degrading in- i fluence of pauperism, does not care about being 1 teuded gratuitously; at all events it is found that the charge for his maintenance is cheerfully paid according to his means. The charge varies in various hospitals from 3s: 6d. to 10s. per week. This sum is contributed by friends, and by the club, and in this manner almost a third of the weekly. payments is made up, leaving a very moderate sum to be subscribed by those charitably inclined in the neighbourhood, in the form of donations and annual subscriptions. The lively sympathy of friends is always a matter to be checked rather than en- couraged. We all know what trash visitors are eased of, by the hall porters in our Metropolitan hospitals, which they would surreptitiously convey to their friends. In the country, however, this willing- ness to tender aid is turned to account: the newly laid egg is permitted, with the approval of the surgeon, to reach the patient; the pat of butter, the wine sent by the mistress, the beef-tea, coming to an old servant from the “big house,” are not ruthlessly withheld ; and the patient in these little attentions finds that he is still linked to friends outside by all the ties of affection. Who shall say what is the value of these natural aids to recovery ? We certainly do not under-estimate their value, neither do we think the reader wilL In looking over the annual reports of those Village Hospitals which have been established some little time, we cannot help being struck with the willingness which neighbours exhibit in supplying the needs of the sufferers. The tradesman, for instance, gives his time for some little odd job; the gentry supply wines or delicacies I in abundance, and books; and the housewife supplies old linen. The classes in a village and its neigh-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22466423_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
