THE NECESSITY 
FOR A HOSPITAL 
IN DOVER, N. H. 
READ jl 
JOHN R. HAM,,M. D., 
AT THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE 
Dover Medical Society, 
ON 
FEBRUARY $, 1892. 
DOVER, N. H. : 
N. E. STILES’ JOB PRINTING HOUSE. 
1892. Privately Printed. Gentlemen :— 
It is well for us as men and physicians, and for the com- 
munity in which we dwell, that this society has an existence. 
We have individual wants of a social and of a professional 
nature which are supplied by the unrestrained intercourse 
and exchange of thought of these monthly meetings ; but we 
should not, and do not, meet for personal ends alone. We 
recognize the fact that we owe a debt of loyalty and service 
to the city in which we dwell. It is not only incumbent 
upon us that we obey the laws, that we live moral and 
upright lives, and perform cheerfully those duties which fall to 
the lot of all citizens, but we owe a peculiar service to our city 
by reason of our special training and learning in the science 
and art of medicine. Nor have we as citizens in the past 
been indifferent when improvements of a public nature 
have been discussed and pushed to a successful issue for the 
public good. We have given our voices and our pens, our 
time and our money, to our public buildings, our streets, 
street lighting, sewers, water supply, street railroad, 
library, stock associations for the building of dwellings for 
the middle classes, and for the erecting of shops for the 
enlargement of our manufacturing interests, for the abatement 
of taxes on local industries, for our park at Garrison Hill, for 
our schools and school buildings, for systematic vaccination 
and for our Board of Health. These things are all needful and will demand our sym- 
pathy and watchful care, in common with all good citizens, 
for all the future; but I am impressed with the idea that 
Dover has another public want, which must be met mainly, 
and at the outset, by the united efforts of our society, or no 
other class of citizens will take the measures to supply it. 
In my judgment Dover needs a City Hospital. We have 
at this time a population of 13,500, and at a railroad centre. 
We have a large class that is dependent upon their daily labor 
in our shoe shops and in our factories, who are not able to 
properly provide for themselves when sick and injured, from 
lack of means and lack of proper facilities in their homes and 
boarding places. 
A hospital would afford relief to the class of people who 
would otherwise suffer from want of care. 
Many clerks, servants and single people generally, are 
not conveniently situated in their usual places of abode, and 
have no systematic care and nursing, nor have they proper 
hygienic surroundings. They would seek the hospital for its 
light and air, for its cleanliness and care, and for its superior 
professional advantages. 
A large number of people with both chronic and acute 
idiopathic diseases would of their own choice enter the hos- 
pital and pay for its privileges. 
A large number of patients who live in the vicinity of 
the hospital, or even in the surrounding towns, who have dis- 
eases requiring surgical treatment, would prefer to enter the 
local hospital for operation and subsequent treatment where 
they could be near their kindred and friends, rather than be 
operated upon at their homes, or go to a hospital in a distant 
city. 
The hospital would be ready at all times for the reception 
of those cases of accidents occurring suddenly to the employes of the Railroads, Mills, and Factories, in which the injured 
person is a stranger having no local habitation or home, or in 
case he is unable to pay for lodging, nursing and surgical 
care, or in case a landlord or boarding-house keeper is unwill- 
ing to furnish the same. 
I hope it may never again fall to my lot to be called to a 
railroad accident requiring amputation of a leg or thigh 
where I must run from hotel to hotel and from boarding 
house to boarding house for an hour or more in vain efforts 
to induce landlord or boarding-house keeper to take in the 
wounded man. 
The mental strain of the surgical preparation, the hastily 
collecting of instruments, sponges, antiseptics, dressings, and 
the securing proper surgical assistance, is enough for the sur- 
geon in charge of the case, without the additional worry of 
providing a place for the operation and subsequent treatment. 
Any of you who has done this, as I have on more than 
one occasion, will join me in praying to be relieved from 
another experience of the kind. 
I would not be an alarmist, but I fear that something 
may occur that will tax our profession in this city to its 
utmost. May we not expect that an accident on the railroad 
between North Berwick and Newmarket, or between Roches- 
ter and Dover Point, will sometime occur? Think of Ros- 
lindale, of Revere, of Bradford, of Scarborough Bridge, and 
tell me, gentlemen of this society, should we be prepared 
were the same awful scenes to be re-enacted before our eyes, 
in our own vicinity? 
Who should take the initiative in this matter? Who but 
the physicians of Dover, who are best able to appreciate the 
demands which suffering humanity may make at any moment 
upon the sympathy and hospitality of our city? I plead for thought, discussion, and action in this matter, 
and we should begin at once. It may take a few years in 
which to raise the funds to purchase, or to build, and then to 
endow a hospital, and this should give us the incentive and 
the purpose to make a beginning now 
I would have the members of the medical profession, 
and as many other leading men in Dover, form themselves 
into the Dover Hospital Association. I would have the asso- 
ciation take the necessary steps to become incorporated under 
the laws of New Hampshire, choose officers, and at once set 
about the raising of funds for a hospital. We could contri- 
bute to it ourselves, and then we could secure contributions 
from our fellow citizens. 
We could secure entertainments, readings, concerts, lec- 
tures, and should raise a good sum from an annual fair. And 
we could induce others to remember the Hospital in their last 
wills and testaments. I am sanguine that this society could 
appeal with success to this community. Once organize and 
set to work and money would flow in for this purpose. 
The city of Dover would make annual donations from the 
city treasury of $500 to $1000, the B. & M. R. R. Co., the 
Cocheco Mf’g Co., and Sawyers Mills would make an annual 
donation or endow beds available for their use in case of 
need ; and employers, recognizing the value to themselves of 
such an institution in their neighborhood in cases of accident 
or serious sickness, would willingly pay in part or in full for 
the care of their employes.