On provident dispensaries as a means for promoting the public health / by James Christie.

  • Christie, James, 1829-1892.
Date:
[1880?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On provident dispensaries as a means for promoting the public health / by James Christie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    i>r RoanU, in the pttngrapli quoted, vrrites with the view of calliu«; tnihlic aitentiuu to the clamaut necessity which exists for the ex I aud organization of our medical charities, so as to carrj tkeir benefits to the homes of the poor ; and he calLi atten- tion to the fact that 32,000 persons, outside the |»u|)er circle, nfiered from various degrees of sickness, aud i-eoeived no medical aid, and that of these, 3,G00 died in one year in tliis city, without having even so much attendance during their illness as would warrant a duly qualified medical practitioner granting a certificate as to the caiue of death. Doubtless, a numl>er of the deaths M> ragistered would be cases of sudden deAth ; but, wore even such CMee eliminattd, the general deduction to be derivoil frotn the CmsIb would not be materiallv Mitored. The percentage of unt' i deaths in Glasgow during the year 1878 was considerably less than during 1874, l>eing 13 as oompared with 23 ; but we arc still confronUnl with the same class of faeCa These 1,646 cases of death, regarding which it was arowed there had be<'n no medical aid whatever ; those 552 cases in which the medical men refu8e<l to c<jrtify hh not having at- tended the cases; and the 1,403 children whoso only medical at- tendance consisted in l>eing carried to a public dispensary or a doctor's shop, all 1>elong to the class which I have introduced to roar noUoe—vix., tlie class comprchended within the 40s. per week area. To the question, therefore, <loeH this class ro^juire any extraneou.s aid in tlie form of medical attendance, we have a respoDjw) in the affirmative from 3,600 graves in one year, aud from 32,000 sick l)e<l8 at least. What is the meaning of these figures 1 The 3,600 dead, and 32.000 sick, were not i8olato<l human Vjeings—strangers in our m 1 They represent a class, probaVily a large class, every one of which is being gradually drawn into the same vortex of misery. The 3,60<} of one year are replaced by 3,600 the next year, and we may well ask from whence are the recruits drawn. They come, I doubt not, in many in.stances, from among the respectable working-classes, whose misfortunes were gi*eater than they were able to liear ; for the death of a parent often means the ruin of a family, and the death of children quite as often means the ultimate pauperization of parents ; they come also from among the re8f)ect- able but improvident, who live from hand to mouth, and make no provision for the future; they cotic also from the ranks of the reckless and the improvident, whose chief anxiety is how to avoid the