Volume 1

An appeal to the public in behalf of a hospital for sick children.

Hospital for Sick Children (London, England)

Date:: 1850

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An appeal to the public in behalf of a hospital for sick children. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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charged cured from the Hospital at Frankfort hang about its gates to see those who tended them when sick, and beg as a special favour to be allowed to come into its garden again to play, but that a Children’s Hospital has been there, as it might be here, a means of moral as well as of physical good, and another link in the golden chain of benevolence and gratitude which should bind together all classes of society. It is true that the plan proposed is but a limited one, though even this will provide for the reception of nearly 800 children annually; and in addition to the good which itself it may effect, it may stimulate other persons to do good on a larger scale. Besides the patients who will directly benefit by the Hospital, it will serve as a school for the training of nurses ; and, what is still more important, for the instruction of young medical men in a department of which it is to be feared that the knowledge at present possessed in this country is most scanty. Thus this, like other forms of charity, will be found “ twice blessed; ” and while contributing to the help of the poor, the rich may feel assured of reaping from the seed thus sown a most abundant harvest, in the skill and experience acquired at this Hospital by those junior members of the medical profession, to whom may afterwards be entrusted the care of their own children when sick. The Committee have no further argument to urge, but leave the facts which they have mentioned to speak for themselves, observing only, in conclusion, and with the greatest reverence, that while He, our great Exemplar and our Lord, left the care of the poor as our never ceasing duty, he added a special blessing on the smallest act of charity to the “Little Ones.”