Hospital construction and management / by Frederic J. Mouat and H. Saxon Snell.

  • Mouat, Frederic J. (Frederic John), 1816-1897.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hospital construction and management / by Frederic J. Mouat and H. Saxon Snell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    11/564
    Preface. THERE is no systematic work in the English language on the arrangement, management, and construction of hospitals, in their hygienic, administrative, and structural relations. The present is, we believe, the first attempt in any language to treat the whole question in a strictly logical manner, by considering primarily the principles necessary to be observed to fit them to fulfil their purpose ; and then by applying those principles to practice, so far as they are accepted by the leading authorities on the subject. All hospitals are intended for the relief of suffering, the cure of disease, and the repair of injuries—their raison d'etre is, consequently, based on medical and hygienic grounds, which need medical knowledge and experience for their right understanding. Hence, this portion of the work has been undertaken by a member of the medical profession, who has for many years, in his official and private capacity, devoted special attention to the question in each and all of its aspects. For the architectural portion the responsibility rests with a member of that profession, who has had considerable personal experience in hospital construction and arrangements; who has made himself practically acquainted with the best recent types of hospitals in Europe; and who has thereby been enabled to form independent opinions as to what to do, and what to avoid, in the practical working of this great question. The issues in the two sections of the work differ essentially in character. In the medical relations of the matter, some of the principles involved must be more or less speculative in character, inasmuch as the problems of life and death, health and disease, the loss of the one and the recovery of the other, are still, and must probably for ever remain, beyond the