"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2949, 21 September 1910, Page 75

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

BY SEA AND MOUNTAIN

August 5. A joyous million or so rose to greet the sun on August 1, bank holiday, for it was actually shining. In an August acrostic the Referee poet had pleaded: A d<*wr Sun, shake off your sloth, U nveil your charms in autumns sky, G lare out above, no longer loth TJ ndraped to meet the eye;, S uch names we've called you, you should burn T o make it hot for us in turn. To everybody's surprise the week end was glorious, with the result, as all the offices and most large firms shut down from Friday till Wednesday, that tfoere ■was a stampede from town, and the railway stations were beehives of activity, most of the trains being doubled and trebled to meet the press. But although for days the great termini de£*i with the exodus, there were millions remaining whose business or means prevented them from keeping holiday further away than an hour or two's journey «t most on the river and heath of Hampstead. or at the river palaces and gardens, or in Epping Forest and Burnham Beeches, a fragment of old forest of great beauty. It was England's really first joyous day since King Edward's death. The weather and the heart of the people alike seemed to throw off the gloom, and happy people disported in the sunshine. Further afield the seaside resorts are crowded, and bathing has beimn in earnest. .. number of well-known people are missing from Cowes this year besides rovalty, and. as at every previous society |oatherm.g of the season, the depression caused by King Edward's death is very apparent. The trades-people of Cowes deplored bad times; "Never has business been so poor," at the beginning of the week was the cry. The Marine Hotel and some of the large new shops are not open at all this year, but with a succession of fine days the town and roads became crowded, and at the Glouster Hotel not a room was to be had, and £1 to £1 5s is charged for very small bedrooms overlooking the Solent. is an absence of the large America. : steam vachts;, the two largest vessels are Sir Thomas Lipton's Erin and Mr S. B. Joel's new yacht Doris, which is magnificent. The Kaiser's Meteor and another well-known German yacht, Germania, have taken part in the racing.. The nautical element in dress has been more than usually pronounced this year, marine blue and . white serges being greatly in evidence, with gilt buttons and braid trimming, the "hobble" skirt giving place to a more convenient width, which allowe for easy stepping aboard. The e"iore gowns are more elaborate —pearl, •rev, heliotrope in creoons and ninon, mauves, whites, and still a good deal of transparent billowy black. Black has been very much worn, for many ladies are still in mourning. The Kin? ?jid Qween of Spain arrived at Cowes last night. Their Majesties are on a short private visit to England. Their arrival at Victoria on Wednesdav was quite informal, the Queen's three brothers meeting them on the platform, and. after a ceremonious bow, affectionately kissing their sister, who was dressed entirely in black. The next day Queen Victoria and King Alphonso spent chiefly in family visits, first to Queen Mary and King George at Marlborough House, and afterwards to Queen Alexandra, who is still in seclusion at Buckingham Palace. They then left London for the Isle of Wight, where the Queen of Spain will stay with her mother, the Princess Henry of Battenberg. \fter Cowes, Scotland, and the opening' of the grouse shooting season on the 12th. Next Monday King George and Queen Marv so to 'Balmoral for their holidav. and other royalties have c;one to their Scottish homes. 'The Princess Royal left last week for Mar Lodi?e. She has remained in London, much longer than usual this year, and has been devoted in her attention to her .widowed mother, visiting her almost daily at Buckingham Palace, and she hopes soon to be joined at Mar Ledge by her Queen-Mother. It will be remembered that the eldest daughter of the Princess Royal—Princess Maud—was to have been presented at Court this season, but owing to the death of King Edward the later Courts were postponed, so that now the young Princess, instead of making her obeisence to her grandfather, with whom she was a great favourite, and to her grandmother, whose charcn she partly inherits, will make her debut under the wing of her uncle George and Aunt Mary in their Coronation year. Last Saturday their Majesties won forever many loyal hearts in a world far removed from Buckingham Palace. It was the occasion of their first visit to the city since King George's accession. The object of their visit was the London Hospital, the largest hospital in the kingdom, with 15,000 yearly in-patients and 182,000 outpatients among London's poor, over a thousand coming each day for help and relief from pain and disease. There are 500 medical students. 700 nurses, and 50 resident doctors. The advance medical science" has made in 170 years is illustrated by a recent article by Ramond Blathwayt. In the reizn of George 11, 1740, in which year " 127 in-patients had been treated, of whom 105 were said to have been cured, 12 being incurable, and 10 dyinsr, there was a death rate of only 8 per cent., which," as the present secretary (E. W. Morris), who has done such wonderful work for the hospital, points out with emphasis, " is a really remark'able fact, considering the enormous disadvarta»es under which they worked in the,*-? far-off days." " Sairey Gamp," Dickens's creation, was an angel of mercy and tenderness

(Specially Written for the Witness Ladies' Page.)

compared with the nurses of George II a reign, and by comparison with the daintily-uniformed nurses of to-day one may judge. Here is a description of the first nurse at the London Hospital:— The first nurse ever appointed to the London Hospital, says Mr Morris, was called " Squire," simply " Squire." She was not even honoured with " Mrs" or ' Miss. She certainly was not " Miss," for nurses then were, invariably broken-down and drunken old widows. " Squire" was paid 5s a, week, and lived out! The committee also engaged a night nurse at a rather lower salary—33 6d per week. And what characters they were. . . . Squire was reported at one time to have taken money from patients; she was not dismissed, however, as it was not in the rules that she should not do so. She promised not to do so again. There was hardly ever a meeting of the committee but some "nurse was dismissed for drunkenness, although they were repeatedly fcTgiven. The first matron, Mra Elizabsth Gilbert, was paid 6d a day by the committee for each patient, with which she was to provide food. It was found that she had practically starved the patients, and the little she had supplied them with had been given at the expense of local tradesmen, with whom she had run up accounts and then decamped. This horrible state of things had so little amended itself even in 1830 that, as a doctor of that neriod said, "We always engage nurses without a character, as no respectable person would undertake so disagreeable an office." Every vice was rampant ,mong these women, says Sir Henry Burdett, our great modern hospital authority, "and their aid to the dying was to remove pillows and bedclothes, and so hasten the end." And this in easy living memory. Compare the past with the present: To-day, for instance, the scientific washing and cleaning of the surgeon's hands will often take longer than the operation he has just performed. Sponges are never allowed in the " theatres" at " The London " until thev have been washed by hand in at least 50 changes of water. In George ll's reign the annual soap bill of the hospital was 10s 6d; to-day there arc 38,000 pieces of linen washed every week, and the laundry and cleaning generally costs more than £IO,OOO a vear. . . . The physician today enters the ward and proceeds to examine a case newly admitted — an obscure case. Behind him stands the physiologist, the bacteriologist, the chemist, the pathologist, the psychologist, and still others. In 1840 Dr Andre, the first physician to the hospital, walked into his wards alone! The materia medica of 1740 were limited. A few drugs onlv were in useroots, leaves, and barks—but to have bought up an apothecary's shop, lock, stock, and barrel, for the benefit of the new infirmary for £l4 10s speaks well for the business ability of then then governors. In 1754 a hospital bed cost £l2 per annum. To-day it is about £9o—eight times as much, it is truebut it is doing 80 times the good. Then it cured John Smith of a disease; to-day it destroys the disease and stamps it out for ever. And yet the problem, remains that the death rate of 1910 is 2 per cent, higher than it was 170 years ago ! Is the answer physical deterioration of the race? There must be a reason why with all the great advance of cleanliness and science tire death rate dees not diminish. It seems that with the advance of civilisation the demand on the physical has enormously increased, and that for all we gain in mind we pay for in body. Else why in the dirty and gluttonous days did fewer people succumb to microbes? The marvel is how they ever came out alive at all in the Second George's reign. For instance, one pair of sheets only was allowed- to each bed, and as these beds were -never empty one wonders if those sheets were ever washed at oil, and the horror of it was that a new patient was popped into the same sheets in which his predecessor had died an hour or two before, although there is a record of one ridiculously fastidious member of the committee expressing a slight! fear me day lest beds in which patients died "might have retained parts of the indignity of their distemper" ! As late as 1789 "no towels were allowed in any of the women's ward*, nor wes there any soap for the hand;?, etc., of any of the patients." The Christian Scientists would say, " As a man t.hinketh so is he," and that the wider knowledge of disease the more disease. To visit this famous hospital of old London, where now sufferers have all the comfort and help that modern advancement can devise, the King and Queen cheso a route that took them from the royal beaten tracks, and gave their humbler subjects tho pleasure of their presence. The cliocsing of Saturday afternoon for their excursion into the East End was not haphazard. On Saturday afternoon the working class are free in thousands, as the densely-lined streets testified, and their Majesties were cheered all along the route, and by many who had never seen them before, for worlds are within worlds in this great city, and worlds apart from worlds, touching only at vital points. Their Majesties were obviously much touched with the warmth of their greeting as they drove through the streets, and by their welcome at the hospital. They were greatly interested in the staue of Queen Alexandra which was erected two years ago in the grounds of the London Hospital. It is the only statue of the Queen-mother, and bears testimony to her great interest and sympathy with the institution and it 6 work and others of its like. The King and Queen overstayed their appointed time at the hospital, greatly interested in the new radium cure for cancer, and in the Finsen lamps. Among the children-patients Queen Mary was quite at home, and one little gtirl answered her Majesty's questions with " Yes, Queen," and " No, Queen," much to her amusement.