St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical StudentBerdoe, Edward
General
St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student
Berdoe, Edward
Medical students -- Fiction
Pass on, young stream, the world has need of thee;
Far hence a mighty river on its breast
Bears the deep-laden vessels to the sea;
Far hence wide waters feed the vines and corn.
Pass on, small stream, to so great purpose born,
On to the distant toil, the distant rest.
—_Augusta Webster_.
Five years after Elsworth’s marriage a great meeting of nobility and
others interested in hospital and charitable work in the metropolis,
met at a ducal residence in Kensington to found a society for the
purpose of establishing in every quarter of London inhabited by working
people, a small hospital and nursing institute on the plan of the
Nightingale institution. This was proposed to be combined with a
similar scheme of civilizing work to that conducted by the Home of the
same name.
It was felt and cordially expressed that so admirable were the results
of the work done by this institution, that society owed it to the
poorer districts of the metropolis at once to do this much towards
remedying the terrible and growing evils caused by the withdrawal of
the gentry from the working neighbourhoods of London; and that the
growing discontent of the people could best be allayed by such a scheme
carried out in its integrity.
One of the speakers said that each place would involve an expenditure
of not more than twelve hundred pounds a year, which sum he believed
was about the cost of keeping the rhinoceros at the Zoological Gardens.
It was not disputed that there were hundreds of ladies leading
perfectly idle and useless lives in the West End who would gladly
devote themselves to such a work if it were made practicable; and it
seemed to the speakers that no missionary work could have such a claim
on Christian people as this. The result of the meeting was that in a
few days large sums of money were placed at the disposal of the
committee, and some fifty ladies of wealth and position offered
themselves for personal service in its cause.
Elsworth is now engaged in a scheme for a General Hospital of 200 beds,
with a Medical School attached to it; the latter being for the purpose
of educating on humane principles such young men as may desire to
devote themselves to the healing art on the lines laid down by the
Founder of that faith from which has sprung all the charities of modern
Christendom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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