cripple many useful members of members of society, but it gnaws at the root of national life, by destroying our health as a people, and by degrees, if we refuse to recognise this fact, it will certainly force itself upon our notice. It is not even too much to say that this is a case for the application of the old proverb, "Charity begins at home," for no one in any class of life can venture to say how nearly this disease may touch his own family, or at any rate, how it may affect his descendants.

This infirmary exists solely for the relief of the suffering poor; it contains no divided interests-even such as a medical school would imply; and there is altogether such an entire freedom and absence of strict hospital regulation as may give rise to the idea, apparently pretty generally entertained, that the institution is a Convalescent Home, that is, a place of recovery for sick people who have already been treated in a hospital.

This, however, is far from the case. It is intended only for the treatment of acute disease; some of the most serious operations known to surgeons (alas! here only too commonly necessary) are successfully performed; and the favourable results are mainly owing to the excellent conditions under which the patients are placed.

Imagine a large building of two stories high, standing in about three acres of ground, including a good sized garden with covered seats for the inmates, and a private walk down to the sands. From the big gates courtesy meets the visitor; the porter civilly recommends us to make our application to see the hospital to the superintendent, since we had come at a wrong hour, and ought not properly to have been admitted-and thus gives a pleasant impression of the place at its very doors. The old part of the hospital, raised nearly eighty years ago, is built round a quadrangle, and is, in spite of an (in some respects) oldfashioned appearance, light and airy

and generally cheerful, even to eyes accustomed to plenty of light. But to London patients, by whom these wards are largely filled, what must be the charm of windows looking towards the open sea? As a rule, however, except after an operation, scrofulous patients are not confined to their beds; and they most of them dine together in a large hall full of long tables, giving them something of the amusement which travellers gain from each other's company at the foreign table-d'hôte.

Long, well lighted passages, white and airy, where clean-looking young nurses are to be met, lead to the new wing of the hospital, constructed on all the best modern principles, containing lofty wards, with spotless walls looking as if they were tiled, but which really are composed of bricks covered with white cement, each brick costing 41d. The floors are double to ensure dryness, deal underneath, and teak above, and are really a pleasure to walk upon, needing from their perfectly smooth and firm surface no external polish in the way of finish. As we pass through the still unused wards we observe a heating apparatus in the middle of each, and a large fireplace adorned with blue tiles at the end. Another passage leads us to a gigantic bathroom, a swimming-bath, lined with white glazed tiles, which may be filled with warm or cold seawater at will. This is lighted from the roof.

On again, and we enter a beautiful little chapel, looking less like a hospital chapel (to the eyes of people acquainted with those dismal and unsightly arrangements) than anything we had ever beheld. This church is richly and even lavishly adorned; its apsidal east end is full of small windows, with stained glass, by Clayton and Bell; indeed every window is painted, and almost every bit of wall covered with some painted text or pattern designed by the same able hands. Through the still unremoved scaffolding it may be seen that

the roof is high, and rich in wood-work, and that no pains or cost have been spared to make the little chapel worthy of its purpose, and pleasant to the eyes of the patients who shall hereafter worship in it.

Under the courteous guidance of the superintendent of the infirmary we are finally led up a staircase to a long balustraded roof, reminding us, by its whiteness in the bright sunshine, of Eastern countries and customs. Here patients, who are not able to get beyond the grounds of the hospital, may be carried, and here they may sit and enjoy sunshine and sea-breezes in absolute quiet, far above even the sea-shore sounds of galloping donkeys and shouting children, with only the distant plashing of the waves upon the beach below, or the occasional cry of sea-birds above, to disturb their peace. At high water, the occupants of the flat roof seem to be almost out at sea themselves, and nothing nearer a seabird's existence for maimed or helpless people could well be contrived.

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Imagine patients, who have long been suffering from some of the many forms of scrofulous disease, shut up the crowded lanes and streets of our great city, perhaps with a monotonous square yard of sky visible from their window, perhaps only some black wall, -suddenly transferred to this bright whiteness and purity, and surrounded by an endless expanse of sea, sky, and sunshine! Imagine, above all, the .children-saddest of all the sad sights among the victims of scrofula-transported here. It may be scarcely neces'sary to describe, for it has been so often done, yet can we be too frequently reminded what some of the dwellings of the London poor are like ? Words are, after all, insufficient, and their homes must be seen for their full squalor, darkness, and impurity to be appreciated. Children, to whom sunlight and air are among the necessaries of existence, are bred up in holes and corners where neither the rays of the blessed sun, nor much of

his light, not even a breath of air which is not defiled, can enter. Poor crippled beings will sometimes spend the greater part of long weary lives alone in these foul habitations. Much has been done to improve the condition of the poor in this respect; but much still remains. Meanwhile it may be said, without exaggeration, that every minute spent by children in such air as that of Margate-nay, every breath they draw there, is of advantage to them, even apart from the medical treatment and skill, and the good food which they here enjoy. And let it be understood that in no other hospital in England are the same advantages to be found in combination as at Margate, of which place it has been said that, were it possible for a person to be put together again after he had been cut in two, it might be done at Margate.

And such conditions are indeed much. For although medical and surgical treatment is absolutely necessary for the control or the cure of scrofulous disease, yet the air of a general hospital-always more or less vitiated is so fatally pernicious to children suffering from this terrible complaint, that the treatment of scrofula under hospital conditions is often practically useless. Medical skill must be aided by the purest attainable air in unlimited quantity, and often also by constant sea-baths; and change of air and scene, as well as good food and tonics, constitute a large portion of the cure.

And if it were only thoroughly realised that delay in the case of scrofula is apt to become fatal, and that therefore no effort should be spared to save the little children of our country while it is yet possible, this institution and its inhabitants would surely receive a larger share of public support, if not out of compassion for the undeserved suffering of inheritance, at least from a largeminded desire for the welfare of future generations of Englishmen.

It is not difficult to let our compassion be roused as we walk through the wards at Margate, and find a row of children either with disease distinctly marked by deformity and ugliness, or, on the other hand, by the unusual beauty of complexion, the peculiar pathetic dark-gray eyes and long black eyelashes, which are so remarkable in many scrofulous children. And if we make the acquaintance of some of these children, we shall find a curiously sharpened mental condition, and in some cases a precocious sensitiveness, not usually to be met with among the lowly born and bred. This, one of the fruits of the disease, renders them specially unfit to struggle against physical disadvantages for their livelihood. Upon them and their welfare, therefore, much of the superfluous energy which is abundant in our country might advantageously be expended. In many cases, if the complaint were attacked in its earlier stages, entire cure would be the result, and thus, to say nothing of the suffering which would be saved, the only effectual check to the disease, nationally speaking, might be given.

Yet it seems that because the hospital is not in London it is therefore considered as more local and less general in its character than the great metropolitan hospitals, whereas it is really, as I have tried to show, more absolutely national, and appeals more to the interest of every individual English man and woman, as well as to their humanity, than any of the wellknown London infirmaries. Margate is not now a fashionable wateringplace; rich people no longer go there, and therefore the scrofula hospital is not heard of in quarters from which the much-needed help can flow. If rich people do hear of it, or do occasionally glance at a blue paper which may sent them, before thrusting it into the waste-paper basket they say to themselves, "Oh, that everlasting Convalescent Home at Margate, or

be

somewhere, wants money; but then they all want money, and Margate is no more an object of charity than any other, I suppose."

Let the splendid new wards, with their Eastern roofs, bathroom, and chapel, answer this too common remark. To the munificent liberality of one man, Sir Erasmus Wilson, the scrofulous poor of England owe their increase of means and appliances for the treatment and cure of their sufferings. He has not considered 25,000%. too much money to spend upon doing the work in the best possible way; nor has the architect, whose name is well-known to the public as the editor of the Nineteenth Century, evidently deemed any pains or expenditure of thought and artistic talent too great for the needs of the case.

It is not indeed given to everybody to do what these men have so nobly done for the poor, but yet it must be clear that this increase of building, in answer to repeated calls upon the infirmary for more accommodation, implies also increase of income; so that without a large addition of extraneous help, the prospect of making the hospital even partially free seems to vanish further and further into the distance. Yet the inevitably heavy weekly payment for board must stand in the way of the full use of the institution. Scrofulous patients need the best food, and no expense is spared by the managers to supply itwines and spirits and costly articles of diet being freely ordered for the patients when considered necessary by the medical men. At present the directors do not find it possible to charge less per month than 1. for children, and 17. 4s. for adults-little enough, and yet very often too much for the patients readily to furnish. If the most hopeful cases-the children -could be admitted at only half the present cost, the usefulness of the charity would be more than doubled.

Do not these facts appeal to the women of England? and will not the

tenderness towards little children, which exists in every woman, and only needs to be roused, lead them to consider whether by some special exertion they cannot meet a special need? I plead that at least some thought and attention should be given to the sufferings of scrofulous children-sufferings at once too wellknown to medical men, and too little considered by the community at large.

Those people who daily, in the autumn of each year, amuse themselves, and lay in a stock of health on the sands and pier at Margate should they not open their eyes and their hearts to the fellow-creatures SO near them, and yet so far off, within the infirmary walls? It needs no high degree of education or of refinement to do this, no large expenditure of time or trouble; and these visitors, wives and daughters of men of business, if they would give some of their thoughts and energies to the matter, might be largely instrumental in getting the institution more widely

known, and the objects of it properly understood and liberally supported by

their friends in London.

Let people go down, by excursion train or otherwise, to Margate, and see some of these invalid children breathing pure, instead of vitiated air, leading healthy out-door lives, eating nourishing food under kind and wise superintendence, and thus storing up within themselves health and spirits with which to return to their sunless city homes. Compare those who have lately arrived, with some whose cure is nearly completed, and the mere sight will produce an impression such as no eloquent report or newspaper appeals can effect. It is impossible not to believe that if only a clear impression of these facts can be produced, the necessary result must follow, and that a consistent national support will be given to the only existing hospital for the treatment of a disease which is eating into the very vitals of our national strength and vigour.

MARGARET LONSDALE.