LAWRENCE F. FLICK, M.D. 423 



diagnosis. He saw all about him the evidences of tuberculosis 

 and the inability of the average tenement-house dweller to secure 

 adequate diagnosis or proper treatment. He was perplexed as to 

 the cause of tuberculosis, and for years struggled singlehanded in 

 research on tuberculosis. 



The Rush Hospital for Consumption and Allied Diseases, incor- 

 porated in September, 1890, realized only in part his ambitions 

 and ideals. It was not until the White Haven Sanatorium, for 

 which he had worked for several years, became an actual fact in 

 1900 that Dr. Flick began to see the consummation of his dream. 

 Here was an institution where the poor could receive treatment 

 free of charge or at reasonable rates. 



In 1901, through the influence of a member of the State Board 

 of Charities, Dr. Flick met Mr. Henry Phipps, and out of the 

 meeting grew and developed a friendship which bore fruit in a 

 great many different ways. Commenting on Mr. Phipps' first 

 visit to the White Haven Sanatorium in 1901, Dr. Flick says: 



"It was a rainy day and the grounds were muddy. Overhead everything 

 was gloomy. Mr. Phipps found the patients lodged in an old barn, their 

 beds ranged on the threshing floor and in the hay-mows. The administration 

 building was a small and dilapidated farm-house. There were about forty 

 patients in the institution. As Mr. Phipps left me on Saturday afternoon at 

 Bethlehem he said, 'You may hear from me again, 1 but I was very much down- 

 cast and feared that the sanatorium had made a bad showing indeed. Imagine 

 my surprise when at four o'clock the next morning I was routed out of bed by 

 a special delivery letter from Mr. Phipps which read, ' It really surprises me 

 how much good you are doing with so little money at your command. It is 

 very creditable to your management. If you had been a business man in any 

 line you would have been a serious competitor, but you wisely selected a better 

 line than that of business, that of conferring benefits on your fellow-men. 

 Please accept my check enclosed for $2, 500, which please use in any way you 

 may prefer for the benefit of the Free Hospital for Poor Consumptives.' " 



In October, 1901, Dr. Flick had occasion to tell Mr. Phipps 

 about his ideas regarding a dispensary in one of the congested 

 districts of Philadelphia. Imagine his surprise when Mr. Phipps, 

 on learning of the plan, offered to buy a whole block and equip a 

 hospital for him. Out of this conversation grew the Henry Phipps 

 Institute for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, and later 

 the Phipps Tuberculosis Dispensary in Baltimore and the Phipps 



