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Letter XX. Hospitals.
The separation of the cells might be in part continued, either for
comfort or for decency. Curtains instead of grating, would give the patient, when thought
fit, the option of being seen. Partitions of greater solidity and extent, might
divide the fabric into different wards; confining infection, adapting themselves to
the varieties of disease, and affording upon occasion diversities of temperature.
In hot weather to save the room from being heated, and the patients
from being incommoded, by the sun, shades, or awnings might secure
the windows toward the South.
I do not mean to entertain you here with a system of physick</sic,
or a treatment upon airs. But a word or two on this subject you must permit
me. Would the <sic>cielings of the cell be high enough? Is the plan of construction
sufficiently favourable to ventilation? — I have not the good fortune to have
read a book, published not long ago on the subject of hospitals, by our countryman
Mr Aickin: though I remember seeing some account of it in
a Review. But I cannot help begging of you to recommend to the notice
of your medical friends the perusal of Dr. De Mort's <hi rend="underline">Maret's</hi> paper in the Memoinr of
the Academy of Dijon for the year 1782. If either his facts or his
reasoning are to be trusted, not only no loftiness of cieling is sufficient to
ensure to such a building a purity of air, but it may appear questionable whether
such an effect be upon the whole promoted by that circumstance. (a)
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(a) To a Hospital lately built at Lyons a vast dome had been given in this
view. It had been expected that the foul air should be found at top: while
that near the floor should have been sweet and wholesome. On the contrary. Substances which turned putrid at the bottom in a single day, remained sweet
above at the end of five days.
His
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