Report of the finances for the year ending June 30, 1867. Report of the consulting and advisory board. The consulting and advisory board of "Columbia Hospital for Women and Lying-in Asylum" beg leave to report to the directors of said institution the result of a thorough inspection of the hospital, an examination into its affairs, and the manner in which it is conducted. Every part of the building was found in neat and perfect order, clean and well ventilated, and the inmates contented and comfortable; every want supplied, and the most efficient means being used for the relief of such disease as afflicted them. The most economical adaptation of means to the end desired was displayed in every department. The cooking, washing, and laundry arrangements, the heating of the building, the dispensary, the garden, the wellarranged method of nursing, and the sanitary arrangements as to sewers, &c., all testified to the skill and executive ability of the surgeon-in-chief, while the successful medical and surgical management of the most severe and difficult cases, as shown by the history of the hospital, demonstrates capacity and devotion to duties on the part of the surgeon and his assistants, entitling them to the continued confidence of the board of directors. The records show that since the hospital was opened, in April, 1866, four hundred and fifty cases have been treated; of these about three hundred were out-door patients. Of the obstetric cases quite a number were more or less complicated, and were brought in on the second and third day of labor, the midwife being unable to deliver them; but one of these was lost, which was from ruptured uterus. Of surgical cases there have been thirteeen of ruptured perineum of long standing, besides rectocele, varicocele, prolapsus, anteversion and retroversion of the uterus. All of these have been successfully operated upon for radical cure. Two cases of recto-vaginal fistula cured by union by the first intention. Two cases of carcinoma uteri in a very advanced stage have been apparently arrested in their destructive progress, and the patients restored to comparative health and usefulness, for a time at least, by the application of pure bromine locally. A public dispensary has been established, which is open daily from 10 to 12 m., and 4 to 6 p. m. Great relief has been afforded by this to the suffering poor, and its benefits are being extended more and more every day to increasing numbers. Although the institution was established for the purely benevolent purpose of relief to those unable to pay their own expenses, yet its facilites and advantages having been so much appreciated and sought by others more able, who suffer equally with the indigent, it has been considered proper to admit them; the means procured in this way will enable the board to extend very much their re lief to the poor. In view of the policy of making the institution, as far as may be, a self-supporting one, it is suggested that more room is required, and, if possible, a larger building, so that arrangements may be made to separate the private from the public wards. The amount now paid for rent would discharge a large part of the interest on the principal required for the ground and a new building. This could be adapted more completely and economically to the wants of the community, and the growing popularity of the hospital justifies us in the belief that it might be made very soon a self-supporting institution. The rapid increase of our population, its peculiar character, that of a metropolis, and the fact that this institution has supplied a most pressing want in our midst, justify us in the belief expressed. J. K. BARNES, M. D. JOSHUA RILEY, M. D. F. HOWARD, M. D. |