a 
5) ee q 
162 BAILLY. 
the cries of the tormented. He who has to suffer the 
next day has before him a picture of his own future suf- 
ferings ; he who has passed through this terrible trial, 
must be deeply moved at those cries so similar to his 
own, and must feel his agonies repeated; and these ter- 
rors, these emotions, he experiences in the midst of the 
progress of inflammation or suppuration, retarding his 
recovery, and at the hazard of his life.” .... “To 
what purpose,” Bailly justly exclaims, “ would you make 
an unfortunate man suffer, if there is not a probability 
of saving him, and unless we increase that probability 
by all possible precautions ? ” 
The heart aches, the mind becomes confused, at the 
sight of so much misery ; and yet this hospital, so little 
in harmony with its intended purpose, still existed sixty 
years ago. It is in a capital, the centre of the arts, of 
knowledge, of polished manners; it is in an age re- 
nowned for the development of public wealth, for the 
progress of luxury, for the ruinous creation of a crowd 
of establishments devoted to amusements, to worldly and 
futile pleasures; it is by the side of the palace of an 
opulent archbishop; it is at the gate of a sumptuous 
cathedral, that the unfortunate, under the deceitful mask 
of charity, underwent such dreadful tortures. To whom 
should we impute the long duration of this vicious and 
inhuman organization ? 
To the professors of the art? No, no, Gentlemen! 
By an inconceivable anomaly the physicians, the sur- 
geons, never obtained more than a secondary, a subordi- 
nate influence over the administration of the hospitals. 
No, no, the sentiments of the medical body for the poor 
could not be doubted, at an epoch and in a country 
where Dr. Anthony Petit thus answered the irritated 
