2
2. The results of the experiment, so far as hitherto ascertained.
The Liverpool Vestry had previously made considerable efforts to improve the workhouse infirmaries. The medical men had been encouraged to make requisition for every material appliance that could facilitate the cure of the sick; and paid female officers were appointed at the rate of one to each 150 or 200 beds, to superintend the giving of medicines and stimulants, and so forth: but of course so small a number, even had they been trained nurses, could do no real nursing, and could exercise little supervision over the twenty drunken or unreliable[1] pauper nurses who were under the nominal direction of each paid officer. An appeal was made to the Vestry to consummate the good work they had thus partially commenced, and it was urged that Liverpool should assume the lead in the task of workhouse reform. The following considerations were submitted to the Select Vestry:—
"That Liverpool could commence this movement with great effect, and with the certainty that her example would be widely followed.
"That she had in times past taken a leading part in such reform. The introduction of the New Poor Law produced little change in Liverpool; so many of its wisest provisions were already in operation there, some of them for twenty or thirty years.
"That she had already established a system of atten-
- ↑ Liverpool is a seaport, and a receptacle where the poverty and vice of Great Britain and Ireland seem to accumulate; and it is probably on this account that the able-bodied female paupers are peculiarly vicious and worthless.
