Heaven must be won, not dreamed; thy task is set, Peace was not made for earth, nor rest for thee. Lyra Apostolica. And so the medical staff of the Nightingale Hospital of fifty beds consisted of a resident doctor, duly qualified both by nature and the colleges—the only true “double qualification” in this world—with a consulting physician and surgeon of eminence who attended twice a week for a proper fee. This last was not at all an honorary appointment, because doctors never do work for nothing if they can help it, any more than bishops, or even kings; and as they were prevented by the constitution of the place from paying themselves in any of the accustomed ways, substantial cheques had very properly to be drawn. No new operations, no new drugs, no treatment of any kind not well established elsewhere were permitted by the governing body (which had several medical men on its board beside the lay members), because it was held that, however desirable it might be to keep abreast of the science of the day, it was first much more important then and there to get the poor women and children of Commercial Road healed of their diseases as soon as conveniently might be done. Science, as far as Commercial Road folk went, was thus baulked of its prey—no great hindrance probably to the human race. The ladies of Nightingale House had not settled in that locality precisely on scientific grounds: they felt they could safely Two large and well-conducted Convalescent Homes were part of the plan—one situated at Hastings, and the other at Godalming; and these contributed at least as much as the hospital itself to the improved health of the parish. Now it was objected by those who were not friendly to this place that medical knowledge could never be advanced by such a system, and would stagnate and die, if all hospitals were conducted so selfishly. It was answered that medical science could scarcely be in worse plight than it already was, after all its great opportunities and hecatombs of murdered victims, as admitted by the most eminent medical writers. No objector to the methods of treatment in our great general hospitals could express himself with more force than Sir Astley Cooper, lecturing to the students of Guy’s Hospital, when he said: “Look, gentlemen, at one hundred patients who come into the hospital. What is the miserable treatment of these patients? You are aware that I scarcely ever enter these wards (the medical wards) of the hospital. I will tell you Nightingale Hospital could not do worse than this anyway! |