The out-patient departments of the great general hospitals stand more in need of reform than perhaps any of the charitable institutions of our time. To the contributors and subscribers they appear, doubtless, to be the one great means of affording poor persons the highest medical and surgical advice, and the best medicines and appliances free of charge. The poor believe this, the well-to-do middle classes, and even the rich believe it. The out-patient department day after day is thronged by several hundreds of men, women, and children, who go there at noon and wait hour after hour, often till five o’clock in the evening, for an interview with the physician or surgeon who, between the hours of two and four, will probably see one hundred cases. Well-dressed women and men, whose aspect proves them to be at least above the necessity of obtaining medical assistance gratuitously, occupy the time of the staff, and deplete the resources of the hospital in respect of valuable drugs to the extent of many thousands of pounds’ worth annually in London alone. Vast numbers of patients attend who are suffering from trifling ailments which need but the simplest home remedies for their cure. On the other hand, children and adults of both sexes go week after week to the out-patient department, when every time they leave their room for the purpose, the exposure, the necessary fatigue, the long waiting in draughty and over ventilated rooms, does them more harm than any medical treatment they can receive, under such circumstance, can do good. All this happens within the perfect knowledge of the staff, who, so far from discountenancing the system, encourage the patients to attend regularly, and seldom dissuade them till the last days of the poor creatures’ existence. The reasons for such policy, held to be paramount are these: First; the greater the number of patients who seek the aid of the charity, the greater claim the committee can make on the purses of the charitable.