Surgical Cases in the City Dispensary. 237 



eicposure to the inclemency of the weather. He was con- 

 fined from accidental injury, by which an abscess on the 

 leg was produced, from which he appeared to be recover- 

 ing ; when the cough and expectoration, to which he had 

 been subject many years, suddenly left him, difficulty of 

 breathing ensued, with pain in the chest : neither did blis- 

 ters, expectorants, or diaphoretics, appear to produce the 

 least effect, and he died within 48 hours from the accession 

 of the first unfavourable symptom. 



The importance and utility of the industrious poor to a 

 civilized and commercial state are indisputable ; their ser- 

 vices have been for ages past acknowledged, and will con- 

 tinue to be so by generations yet to come. Surely, then, 

 gratitude must confess that they claim the attentive regard, 

 and that they are entitled under infirmities to the charitable 

 assistance, of a generous and benevolent public. 



Experience shows that near one-tenth part of mankind 

 are afflicted with hernia 1 How many of those persons are 

 there necessarily engaged in laborious pursuits to earn a 

 scanty sustenance for themselves and families, without the 

 possibility of providing even the necessary clothing to de- 

 fend their bodies from the inclemencies of the weather, to 

 which they are daily exposed I 



View them the subjects of this malady, a disease of all 

 others, perhaps, the most insidious, and tending to the 

 greatest danger ; being in many instances, at its commence- 

 ment, unattended with pain, or further inconvenience than 

 that which arises from the increased size of the part, which 

 is easily reduced by placing the body in a horizontal posi- 

 tion. Circumstances may continue in this state for an in- 

 definite length of time, which no human v/isdom can fore- 

 see: the unhappy sufferers are seized with inflammation in 

 the part, when, from their ignorance of the symptoms and 

 danger of the complaint, they allow much time to elapse 

 before surgical assistance is called. In this metropolis the 

 first application is frequently made to dispensaries ; when 

 behold distress in every countenance ! the parent confined 

 on a sick bed, the scanty sustenance of the family ceases 



with 



