Handy book of cottage hospitals / by Horace Swete.

  • Swete, Edward Horatio Walker, 1827-1912.
Date:
[1870]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Handy book of cottage hospitals / by Horace Swete. 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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    INTRODUCTORY. One of the most important problems of political economy, is that of deciding how to help the poor to help themselves, rather than to demoralize and to degrade them to the rank of “paupers” by indiscriminate alms-giving. Many of our modern senators are beginning to see that giving relief to the sick poor in the shape of a loan, has more the effect of relieving the over-burdened ratepayer than forcing the poor man, whose present means of subsistence has been cut off by sickness, to Sell his little “sticks of furniture,” and go into “the house.” The system of cottage hospitals, which this little book advocates, is founded on the principle, ab initio, of helping the poor to help themselves. It was an era in the history of hospitals when Mr. Napper, of Cranleigh, showed that all the good effects of a hospital might be obtained with a zealous, ear- nest surgeon and a good nurse, in a simple cottage, like that of the poor man; and that, putting aside the, perhaps time- honoured, custom of providing gratuitously all the appliances and diet of the hospital, the poor were not only thankful for the aid afforded in the little Cottage Hospital, but were able and willing to pay a weekly instalment towards their maintenance.