It would be very unfortunate for the visitor to be an alarmist, for there are imaginary invalids among the poor as well as elsewhere, but more frequently the poor neglect the earlier symptoms of sickness altogether, or else dose themselves with patent medicines. The quack doctors who advertise in the daily papers draw much of their custom from the very poor, who are also large consumers of cure-alls and proprietary medicines. We have seen how children's physical defects can pass unnoticed at home, and this is the case in a less degree with the defects and ailments of adults. The very cheap grade of medical service that is sometimes given by regular practitioners in poor neighborhoods has a tendency to discourage the poor from taking sickness in time. The visitor can help them to procure better medical service at reasonable charges or, when necessary, without charge. The grade of service in dispensaries varies greatly, but the medical advice and directions given there with the medicines can be made far more useful if the visitor will go with the patient and see that the directions are understood and carried {101} out. Often no adult in the family can spare the time to go with a sick child to the dispensary. Here, too, the visitor's service will be helpful. In cases of contagious disease, see that the Board of Health is notified promptly. Other things being equal, an acute case of illness can usually be better and more economically cared for in a hospital than in a poor home. In fact, although hospitals were intended originally for the destitute sick, the practice of sending well-to-do patients there is rapidly spreading. The prejudice against hospitals, still so general among the poor, is a survival from a time when hospital care was far less humane than now. If the visitor has ever been a patient in a hospital, and can tell his own experience or the experiences of friends, or if he happens to know some of the doctors or nurses, and promises to see them about his poor friend, the prejudice can often be overcome. The dread of the untried and the unknown is natural enough, and yet it will happen now and then that hospital care is so clearly the best thing that nothing can take the place {102} of it, and suffering and loss will be entailed upon the family by their refusal to let the sick member go. In such cases charitable people may be justified in helping the family to a right decision by withholding all relief.