A biographical memoir of the late Dr. Joseph Thackeray, of Bedford.

Date:
[1832?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A biographical memoir of the late Dr. Joseph Thackeray, of Bedford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/24 (page 14)
    u Infirmary, by Dr. Thackeray and his immediate family, were not less than £2,500. A further object of Dr. Thackeray was to annex to the infirmary a library and a museum. In this he sought not merely the benefit of the institution, but, with the enlarged and enlightened benevolence which characterised all his designs, he aimed at promoting the well-being of the whole community. Knowing how greatly the welfare of the community is dependent on the competency of their medical attendants; how incapable many of these are of possessing themselves of the necessary sources of information ; how in¬ valuable a well stored medical library is to numbers who possess not this advantage; how signally exten¬ sion of knowledge, on their part, conduces to the benefit of all who need their services; his aim, in appending a library and museum to the hospital, was to extend the knowledge, and increase the efficiency, of the whole medical profession within its reach, and thus to repay to the benefactors of the charity, through the improvement in science of those to whom they resorted for medical aid, some equivalent for what they had devoted to the support of the charity. In all this Dr. Thackeray acted with sound intellect, correct judgment, and enlightened benevolence. It is an error to which even benevolent minds occasionally, through want of reflection, incline, to consider the sole end of public hospitals to be the relief of the sick poor, for whose use they are more immediately pro¬ vided. The view is a narrow one which so regards them. Far higher and more extensive are the pur¬ poses for which they are available. Of charity, as of mercy, it may be truly said, that it is twice blessed; and no more signal instance of this retributive quality could be adduced, than that which public hospitals present. If, through their medium, the rich minister to the wants of the poor, an ample return is made in