DESIDERATA IN MEDICINE
[To the Editor of TILE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Sir Walter Langdon Brown's article in your Christmas number—" Desiderata in Medicine "—will claim the attention of everybody interested in hospital management. To the Children's Hospital from which I write, his comment on Hippocrates' pleasant island site in contrast with " crowded centres " is particularly encouraging.
Nearly two years ago the modernisation of this Hospital became imperative. Acting on the advice of its Medical committee the Board determined, while retaining its out- patient department and sufficient emergency beds in Shadwell, to transfer the main hospital to the country, and its enthusiasm was stimulated by Mr. Garton's gift of a house and estate at Banstead within an easy motor run of the present building.
The house, with additions, will serve for a nurses' home and an administrative block. The design of the new hospital reveals a long three-storeyed building with a southerly aspect, and the balcony space achieved by the stepping back of each story behind the other offers every patient the maximum amount of. sun.
Further, the acreage available has made it possible for the Board to provide (a) its own isolation block for patients who develop infectious illness in the hospital, (5) a con- valescent home in the same grounds, and thus assure its patients a continuity of treatment under the same doctors during illness and convalescence.
The Duchess of York laid the foundation stone in July ; building is expected to start in the new year, and when it is complete I venture to think that both as regards site and structure it need fear no comparison from those foreign sanatoria which Sir Walter mentions in his article. I might even go a step further and say that when the whole estab- lishment is completed, with its opportunities for research (especially child nutrition) and its mental and physical training for convalescents, we can look forward to a revival of Hippo- crates' pleasant island.—I remain, Sir, yours faithfully,
EDWARD PENTON,
Secretary -Superintendent.
The Princess Elizabeth of York Hospital for Children, Shadwell, London, E. 1.
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