20 MARCH 1880, Page 24

The Value of Human Life ; or, the Present History

and Possible Future of our Hospitals, by the Rev. J. Dodd, M.A. (James Parker), is a book sufficiently described by its second title. Mr. Dodd has studied his subject, and has something to say that is worth hearing about it. The subject of the great London Hospitals is one of great difficulty. They are of such immense importance to the medical science of the country, that they demand the most careful treatment, but whether they do as much actual healing of diseases as is propor- tionate to their means is doubtful. Spend fifty thousand a year on good cottage hospitals, and how vast the result ! But then you have destroyed a great medical school, and with it part of the skill which is to make these smaller hospitals effective.