ss
of resource true science suggests. The first incision made, and the skin
peeled around, an assistant hands a saw, and in the twinkling of an eye
the limb is severed, and the stump, bleeding and smoking, is being sewn
up by skilful hands almost before the poor fellow wakes up, wearied and
exhausted by loss of blood, from what must have been to him, if we may
judge by his moans and exclamations, a terrible dream. As soon as
possible he is borne away, the blood is sponged up, the table wiped down;
and another patient, it may be a pale-faced girl or a little boy
suffering from some fatal malformation, succeeds. All that humanity can
suggest is resorted to. Here science loses her stern aspects, and beats
with a woman's tenderness and love; and not in vain, for from that table
rise, who otherwise would have painfully perished, many to bless their
families, it may be the world. But all is over, and we follow the crowd
out, avoiding that other passage leading to the dissecting-room, where on
many a table lie the mangled forms of what were once men and women, in
all stages of dissection and decay, with students hard at work on them,
painfully gathering or seeking to gather a clue to the mystery of
mysteries we call life. Possibly by the fire-place some half-dozen young
fellows will be smoking and drinking beer. But why note the contrast?
Out of the dissecting-room, beyond the narrow precincts of the hospital,
masked in gay clothes, with faces all red with paint and wrinkled with
idiotic leer, stand side by side the living and the dead.

* * * * *

The principal London Hospitals are the following:--1. St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, in West Smithfield, first founded in the twelfth century, and
refounded by Henry VIII. in 1546. The building, a spacious quadrangular
structure, is principally modern, having been finished in 1770. It makes
up 580 beds. In 1848,71,573 were relieved by this hospital, viz., 5,826
inpatients, 19,149 out-patients, and 46,598 casual ditto. Necessity is
the only recommendation to this institution; and patients are received
without limitation. The medical staff is equal to any in the metropolis.
The staircase was gratuitously painted by Hogarth. 2. Guy's Hospital,
St. Thomas's Street, Southwark, founded in 1721, contains accommodation
for 580 in-patients, and has an excellent museum and theatre of anatomy.
This magnificent hospital, which consists of two quadrangle