" bruised and
bleeding, yet stupid with drink, is examined carefully by the attendant
surgeons. It is of no use asking him what's the matter; his expressions,
never very direct or refined, are now very muddy, and not a little
coarse. A careful diagnosis reveals the extent of the injuries received.
All that science can do for him is done. If he is taken as an inmate he
will have as good nursing and food, and as skilful care and as
unremitting attention, as if he were a prince of royal blood. Wonderful
places are these hospitals. If Sawney, subject to an unpleasant
sensation on the epidermis, blesses the memory of the good duke who
erected on his broad domain convenient posts, let us bless a thousandfold
the memory of Rahere, who obtained from Henry I. a piece of waste ground,
upon which he built a hospital (now known as St. Bartholomew's) for a
master, brethren, and sisters, sick persons, and pregnant women; or of
Thomas Guy, son of a lighterman in Horsleydown; but himself a bookseller
in Lombard-street after the Great Fire; or of the nameless Prior of
Bermondsey, who founded, adjoining the wall of his monastery, a house of
alms, now known as St. Thomas's Hospital. Likewise let us thankfully
record the gifts of the rich, of whose liberality such hospitals as those
of King's, and University, and Westminster, and the London, and St.
George's, are the magnificent results.

Now let us return to our friend Carroty Bill. As we have intimated, he
is in the ward appropriated to such cases. One of the professors is now
going his round, accompanied by his students. Let us go in. The first
thing that strikes us is the size, and cleanliness, and convenience of
the wards; how comfortable they are, how light, how cheerful, how lofty,
and well ventilated! Each patient is stretched on a clean bed, and at
the top are pinned the particulars of his case, and on a chair by his
side are the few little necessaries he requires. The practised physician
soon detects the disease and the remedies. His pupils are examined; the
patient forms the subject of a hasty lecture. One is asked what he would
do, another what disease such and such a symptom denotes; a word is
whispered to the nurse; the sick man, whose wistful eye hangs on every
movement, is bid to keep up his spirits, and he feels all the more
confident and the better fitted to struggle back to health for the few
short words of the professor, to whom rich men pay enormous fees,