738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



everywhere for inverted methods natural organization, or, in other 

 words, scientific cooperation. 



The claim that the Federative Home, or " People's Palace," is the 

 natural, inevitable form of the organized Household coextensive 

 with the future society brings the subject within the domain of 

 legitimate social science. The consideration of improved expedients 

 for housing the people, without regard to the essential form and ten- 

 dencies of civilization, is no part of social science, but only a dis- 

 cussion of the arts of life. 



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RELATIONS OF HOSPITALS TO PAUPERISM. 1 



By W. GILL WYLIE, M. D. 



/"^IVILIZATIOIS' has not reached that state of perfection where 

 V> hospitals can be dispensed with. 1. As long as armies exist, 

 hospitals will be necessary. Soldiers when sick must be provided with 

 special accommodations; and, after a battle, the wounded cannot be 

 properly cared for except in hospitals constructed especially for the 

 purpose. 2. During epidemics of contagious and infectious diseases, 

 it becomes a necessity to separate those infected from the well, and 

 for their accommodation hospitals must be erected. 3. In every com- 

 munity, especially in large cities, there are always a certain number 

 of paupers without any homes, who must be cared for when sick, and 

 the only practical way of providing for them is to establish hospitals. 

 4. In large cities provision must be made for street casualties, and 

 hospital accommodations are necessary. 5. On account of difficulty 

 in making suitable provision for the insane in private houses, hospitals 

 or asylums for the insane are necessary. 



In this country, in all large cities, any one representing himself as 

 poor and sick can apply either to the public hospitals supported by 

 the State or to hospitals supported by voluntary contributions, and is 

 admitted in many cases without any special inquiry or investigation as 

 to his circumstances. In some places as New York City hospitals 

 are so numerous, and admission to them so freely granted, that there 

 is little or no restraint on impostors. If refused admission to one in- 

 stitution, they go to another and receive treatment and care without 

 cost, when they are fully able to provide for themselves. And so 

 numerous are the dispensaries where medicines and medical advice 

 can be obtained free of cost, merely for the asking, and so easy and 

 readily can care and attention be had in free hospitals, that the poor 

 have no necessity to make provision for sickness. 



It is estimated that about $10,000,000 are expended in public and 



1 Extract from Boylston Medical Prize Essay, Harvard University, on " Civil Ilospital 

 Construction," 1876. 



