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"His poverty, his hapless helpless irremediable poverty he justly considers as the cause of this consummation of human woe! his mind is alternately torn with the passions of grief and despondence, when he sees even the probability extinguished of having his health re-established!"

— Nolan, William (fl. 1786)

Author

Nolan, William (fl. 1786)

Work Title

An Essay on Humanity: or a View of Abuses in Hospitals

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for the Author

Date

1786

Metaphor

"His poverty, his hapless helpless irremediable poverty he justly considers as the cause of this consummation of human woe! his mind is alternately torn with the passions of grief and despondence, when he sees even the probability extinguished of having his health re-established!"

Metaphor in Context

It is also customary (nay indeed it is indispensibly necessary, in order to be admitted into the hospitals) for the patient to bring two clean shirts with him besides the shirt he wears, which must be clean also; to the propriety, decency, and utility of this regulation, I very readily subscribe, where the circumstances of the patient will admit of a conformity to it. I admit it is also a co-operative assistance in the restoration and preservation of health in the course of medical application--for as filth is as obnox ous to health as to sense so is cleanliness as useful to the one as agreeable to the other. But do all these reasons united justify the cruelty of rejecting an unhappy patient for non-conformance to this hospital mandate, especially when unrelenting necessity is the cause? Will any good, intended to be promoted by it, counterbalance the evil promiscuously entailed on every unhappy wretch thus rejected? No--I am confident it will not! Let us for a moment enter into the thoughts of the unhappy creature thus disappointed.--All his less acute sorrows, which before lay in a state of torpitude, are now new-edged by this recent aggravation of his calamities! His poverty, his hapless helpless irremediable poverty he justly considers as the cause of this consummation of human woe! his mind is alternately torn with the passions of grief and despondence, when he sees even the probability extinguished of having his health re-established!
(pp. 16-17)