Passing along the main streets of the city we see in twenty places,
equally distant, a separate building surrounded by its own grounds,--a
model hospital for the sick. To make these institutions the best of
their kind, no expense is spared. Several elements contribute to their
success. They are small, and are readily removable. The old idea of
warehousing diseases on the largest possible scale, and of making it
the boast of an institution that it contains so many hundred beds,
is abandoned here. The old idea of building an institution so that
it shall stand for centuries, like a Norman castle, but, unlike the
castle, still retain its original character as a shelter for the
afflicted, is abandoned here. The still more absurd idea of building
hospitals for the treatment of special organs of the body, as if the
different organs could walk out of the body and present themselves for
treatment, is also abandoned.
It will repay us a minute of time to look at one of these model
hospitals. One is the _fac simile_ of the other, and is devoted to the
service of every five thousand of the population. Like every building
in the place, it is erected on a subway. There is a wide central
entrance, to which there is no ascent, and into which a carriage, cab,
or ambulance can drive direct.
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