48 The Hospital Requirements of Sydney, 



respect to the relative certainty and rapidity of cure from various 

 diseases and injuries in town and country, will be found somewhat 

 meagre and indecisive, but we believe they adequately represent 

 the evidence which we at present possess on this vital question. 

 "What answer, then, should we be prepared to give to such a 

 question as this : Suppose it possible to transport St. Batho- 

 lomew's Hospital as it now is, and with its present supply of 

 patients, from the heart of the city into the heart of the country, 

 what would be the results on the prospects of individual patients. 



" Our deliberate opinion is that the effect, if any, would be very 

 trifling. That there might be some slight variation in the mor- 

 tality may or may not be probable ; but that the prevalence of 

 hospital disease would much decrease, that operations on given 

 cases would be much more likely to succeed or that the period of 

 recovery of given cases would be much more abridged, we do, 

 judging from the evidence before us of the state of things in hos- 

 pitals variously circumstanced as far as situation goes, utterly 

 disbelieve. In fact, we have no evidence which shows that any 

 change at all would be wrought in any one of these three par- 

 ticulars. 



" But if the effect of the removal were to change the supply of 

 patients, whether as to the nature of the cases, or as to the class 

 of persons admitted, — if instead of a large proportion of danger- 

 ous accidents and acute diseases, the practice of the hospital were 

 to lie chiefly among chronic invalids and convalescents, — or if, in- 

 stead of the worn-out victims of want and debauchery, who are 

 the principal subjects to injury and acute diseases in towns, the 

 healthier inhabitants of a district were to become the inmates of 

 the hospitals, — then there can be little doubt that the success of 

 treatment would be considerably increased. 



" Let us apply these conclusions to the most interesting and 

 important of the questions which are at present agitated with 

 respect to town or country hospitals, viz., whether it is possible 

 to treat the sick of the metropolis or other great cities in hospitals 

 situated in the country, and whether the benefits which would 

 probably be derived from such a course are equivalent to the in- 

 conveniences which it would certainly involve? In answer to 

 this we may state, that we believe it to be impossible to treat the 

 sick poor of a great city anywhere except near their homes, at 

 least those of them who are most seriously ill, and who, as we 

 have contended all through this report, are more especially the 

 objects of treatment in our large hospitals. The experience of 

 St. Thomas's Hospital is in point on this matter. The removal of 

 the hospital from the Borough to the Surrey Zological Gardens 

 in Walworth was a much less extensive change than the one we 

 have supposed. The new hospital was within walking distance 

 of the situation of the old one, so that no country journey or rail- 



