St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student

AN INFANT RIVER

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.

It is thought that should this plan meet with the success which has attended other hospitals founded on similar principles, it will be ultimately possible to re-direct our richly endowed charities to the purposes intended by their founders and supporters. For many years it was loudly maintained by the doctors that patients could not recover from many illnesses without the liberal use of alcoholic stimulants. The success of the Temperance Hospital has upset that “idol of the schools.” The physiological mania, the drug mania, and the operative furor will all in time pass away like the craze for bleeding, and it will ultimately be found that it is perfectly possible to cure the sick and save the limbs of the injured by merciful, honourable, and rational means. But then it will want merciful, honourable, and rational Christian gentlemen to do all this. Nous verrons.

L’Envoi.

When the world has been dowered with a great truth, the boon comes usually as a germ. The world always looks for its Messiah as a crowned King, and neglects its infant Jesus in the manger. No great truth flashes on the world all at once; great forces work ever most silently. Even the Christ of God so little affected the contemporary history of His period that scarce any record is found of His work in the secular literature of the time.

The seeds of truth, placed in favourable conditions, can no more help growing than the sun can help shining; both fulfil the laws which are behind them; and it is a source of infinite solace to the noble men and women who are striving to benefit the world by their words and works that no great idea founded on the truth of God can either perish or fail of its mission. The work of Mildred and Harrowby Elsworth must ultimately succeed; its principles must in time dominate the conduct of the great medical charities of our land. When the air and light of day are let in upon the foul accumulations of scientific error which have lately been infecting their atmosphere, their antiseptic influence will kill the bacteria of a “science falsely so called.”

THE END

notes

1

“The Doctrine of Descent.” Oscar Schmidt.

2

Browning: “Ring and Book,” vol. iv. p. 60.

3

Virchow’s Archiv., xli. 101.

4

Dublin Journal, xlvii. 325.

5

Bull. Therap., lxxiii. 253. 290.