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Front Page Titles (by Subject) LETTER XX.: HOSPITALS. - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4
LETTER XX.: HOSPITALS. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4 [1843]Edition used:The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 4.
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- A View of the Hard-labour Bill; Being an Abstract of a Pamphlet, Intituled, “draught of a Bill, to Punish By Imprisonment and Hard Labour, Certain Offenders; and to Establish Proper Places For Their Reception:” Interspersed With Observations Relative T
- Panopticon; Or, the Inspection-house: Containing the Idea of a New Principle of Construction Applicable to Any Sort of Establishment, In Which Persons of Any Description Are to Be Kept Under Inspection; and In Particular to Penitentiary-houses,
- Preface.
- Letter I.: Idea of the Inspection Principle.
- Letter II.: Plan For a Penitentiary Inspection-house.
- Letter III.: Extent For a Single Building.
- Letter IV.: The Principle Extended to Uncovered Areas.
- Letter V.: Essential Points of the Plan.
- Letter VI.: Advantages of the Plan.
- Letter VII.: Penitentiary-houses—safe Custody.
- Letter VIII.: Uses—penitentiary-houses—reformation.
- Letter IX.: Penitentiary-houses—economy—contract—plan.
- Letter X.: Choice of Trades Should Be Free.
- Letter XI.: Multiplication of Trades Is Not Necessary.
- Letter XII.: Contractor’s Checks.
- Letter XIII.: Means of Extracting Labour.
- Letter XIV.: Provision For Liberated Persons.
- Letter XV.: Prospect of Saving From This Plan.
- Letter XVI.: Houses of Correction.
- Letter XVII.: Prisons For Safe Custody Merely.
- Letter XVIII.: Manufactories.
- Letter XIX.: Mad-houses.
- Letter XX.: Hospitals.
- Letter XXI.: Schools.
- Postscript, Part I. Containing Further Particulars and Alterations Relative to the Plan of Construction Originally Proposed; Principally Adapted to the Purpose of a Panopticon Penitentiary-house. *
- Section I.: Principal Particulars. Principal Particulars Either Settled Or Altered, Since the First Hasty Design, As Described In Letter II. And Imperfectly Represented In Plate I. See Plate II. †
- Section II.: General View of the Whole Edifice. In a General View of the Whole Building, According to Its Present Form, Three Very Different, Though Connected Masses, May Be Distinguished.
- Section III.: Annular Well. Annular Well, Instead of Stories of Intermediate Annular Area.
- Section IV.: Protracted Partitions Omitted. Protracted Partitions Omitted; Or Rather, Taken Into the Cells.
- Section V.: Cells, Double Instead of Single.
- Section VI.: Dead-part.
- Section VII.: Chapel. Chapel Introduced. *
- Section VIII.: Inspection-galleries and Lodge.
- Section IX.: Of the Communications In General.
- Section X.: Communications. Prisoners’ Staircases.
- Section XI.: Communications—inspectors Staircases.
- Section XII.: Staircase For Chapel Visitors, and For the Officers’ Apartments.
- Section XIII.: Cell-galleries.
- Section XIV.: Doors.
- Section XV.: Diametrical Passage.
- Section XVI.: Communications—exit Into the Yards.
- Section XVII.: Exterior Annular Well. ‡
- Section XVIII.: Windows Reaching Low, and Glazed; Instead of High Up, and Open.
- Section XIX.: Materials. Arched Work—much Iron—plaster Floors.
- Section XX.: Outlets, Including Airing-yards.
- Section XXI.: Approach and Fences.
- Section XXII.: Means of Supplying Water.
- Section XXIII.: Of the Mode of Warming the Building.
- Section XXIV.: Of the Economy Observed In the Construction.
- Postscript—part II. Principles and Plan of Management.
- Section I.: Leading Positions.
- Section II.: Management—in What Hands, and On What Terms.
- Section III.: Of Separation As Between the Sexes.
- Section IV.: Of Separation Into Companies and Classes.
- Section V.: Employment.
- Section VI.: Diet.
- Section VII.: Clothing.
- Section VIII.: Bedding.
- Section IX.: Health and Cleanliness.
- Section X.: Of Airing and Exercise.
- Section XI.: Schooling and Sunday Employment.
- Section XII.: Of Ventilation, Shading, and Cooling.
- Section XIII.: Distribution of Time.
- Section XIV.: Of Punishments.
- Section XV.: Mode of Guarding On the Outside.
- Section XVI.: Provision For Liberated Prisoners.
- The Following Note Respecting This Work Was Given By Bentham to Dr. Bowring, 24 Th January 1821.
- Panopticon Versus New South Wales: Or, the Panopticon Penitentiary System, and the Penal Colonization System, Compared.
- A Plea For the Constitution: Shewing the Enormities Committed, to the Oppression of British Subjects, Innocent As Well As Guilty;
- Preface.
- Section I.: Subject Matter—object—plan.
- Section II.: Power of Legislation—its Necessity In New South Wales.
- Section III: Legislation—how Far Lawful In New South Wales.
- Section IV.: American, &c. Legislation No Precedent For New South Wales.
- Section V.: Even In America, the Crown Had No Right to Legislate Without Parliament.
- Section VI.: Nullity of Legislation In New South Wales, For Want of an Assembly to Consent.
- Section VII.: Nullity of Governor’s Ordinances. For Want of a Court to Try Offences Against Them.
- Section VIII.: King’s Law-servants Not Infallible.
- Section IX.: Nullity of New South Wales Legislation, Proved By the Granada Case.
- Section X.: Governor’s Illegal Ordinances Exemplified.
- Section XI.: Governor’s Illegal Ordinances Exemplified.
- Section XII.: Expirees Forcibly Detained.
- Section XIII.: Expirees, During Detention, Kept In a State of Bondage.
- Section XIV.: Statutes Transgressed By the Legislation and Government of New South Wales.
- Draught of a Code For the Organization of the Judicial Establishment In France: With Critical Observations On the Draught Proposed By the National Assembly Committee, In the Form of a Perpetual Commentary.
- Bentham’s Draught For the Organization of Judicial Establishments, Compared With That of the National Assembly, With a Commentary On the Same.
- Emancipate Your Colonies! Addressed to the National Convention of France, Anno 1793.
- Jeremy Bentham to His Fellow-citizens of France, On Houses of Peers and Senates.
- Papers Relative to Codification and Public Instruction: Including Correspondence With the Russian Emperor, and Divers Constituted Authorities In the American United States.
- Part I.—: On Codification.
- No. I.: To the President of the United States of America.
- No. II.: James Madison, Then President of the Congress of the American United States, to Jeremy Bentham, London.
- No. III.: Albert Gallatin, Minister Plenipotentiary From the American United States to the Court of London, to Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania, Introducing a Letter From Jeremy Bentham to the Said Governor.
- No. IV.: Jeremy Bentham, London, to Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania.
- No. V.: Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania, to David Meade Randolph, Esq. Williamsburgh, Virginia, On the Subject of the Above Letter of Jeremy Bentham.
- No. VI.: Extract From a Printed Paper, Signed Simon Snyder, Dated Harrisburg, December 5 Th 1816, James Peacock, Printer, Intituled “ Governor’s Message to the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, ” Containing Seve
- No. VII.: Circular. — to the Governor of the State of
- No. VIII.: Jeremy Bentham, an Englishman, to the Citizens of the Several American United States.
- No. IX.: Jeremy Bentham to James Madison, Late President of the American United States.
- No. X.: Jeremy Bentham to the Emperor of All the Russias.
- No. XI.: Alexander I. Emperor of All the Russias, to Jeremy Bentham, London—written With His Imperial Majesty’s Own Hand, In Answer to the Above, [no. X.]
- No. XII.: Jeremy Bentham to the Emperor of All the Russias.
- No. XIII.: Prince Adam Czartoriski, of Poland, to Jeremy Bentham, London. *
- No. XIV.: Jeremy Bentham, London, to Prince Adam Czartoriski of Poland.
- Part II.: Public Instruction.
- No. I.: ( Circular. )— Letter From His Excellency Wilson Cary Nicholas, Governor of Virginia, On the Subject of Public Instruction.—addressed (the Copy of Which This Is a Transcript) to His Excellency John Quincy Adams, Minister Plenipotentiary From the U
- No. II.: ( Circular. )— to the Governor of the State of
- No. III.
- No. IV. Notice Concerning Chrestomathia, By the Paris Lancasterian Instruction Society. Report of the British and Foreign School Society to the General Meeting, Dec. 12, 1816.—EXTRACT.
- Codification Proposal, Addressed By Jeremy Bentham to All Nations Professing Liberal Opinions; Or Idea of a Proposed All-comprehensive Body of Law, With an Accompaniment of Reasons, Applying All Along to the Several Proposed Arrangements:
- Advertisement.
- Part I.—ARGUMENTS.: Positions, With Reasons For Proofs.
- Section 1.: In Every Political State, the Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That It Be Provided With an All-comprehensive Body of Law. All-comprehensiveness, Practicable, and Indispensable.
- Section 2.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That Such Body of Law Be Throughout Accompanied By Its Rationale: an Indication of the Reasons On Which the Several Arrangements Contained In It Are Grounded. Rationale, Though Unex
- Section 3.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That Those Reasons Be Such, Throughout, As Shall Show the Conduciveness of the Several Arrangements to the All-comprehensive and Only Defensible End Thus Expressed. Rationale, Indicat
- Section 4.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That, of This Rationale, the Several Parts Be Placed In the Most Immediate Contact With the Several Arrangements to Which They Respectively Apply. Rationale, Interwoven, Not Detached.
- Section 5.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That For the Function Exercised By the Drawing of the Original Draught of Such a Code, the Competitors He As Many As, Without Reward At the Public Expense, Can Be Obtained: and So, For T
- Section 6.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that, For the Drawing of Any Such Draught, No Reward At the Public Expense Be Given. At Additional Expense, Reward None.
- Section 7.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that Every Draught, So Given In, Be, From Beginning to End, If Possible, the Work of a Single Hand. Hands Not More Than One.
- Section 8.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that Such Original Draught, Being the Work of a Single Hand, Be Known to Be So. Hand, Known to Be But One.
- Section 9.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That the Work, Being the Work of a Single Hand, and Known to Be So, It Be Known Whose the Hand Is. Hand, Known Whose It Is.
- Section 10.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That, For the Drawing of the Original Draught, All Foreigners Be Admitted Into the Competition: and That, In So Far As Applicable, Unless It Be In All Particulars Taken Together Decid
- Section 11.: On the Part of an Individual, Proposing Himself As Draughtsman For the Original Draught of a Code of Laws, Willingness Or Unwillingness to Interweave In His Draught a Rationale As Above, Is the Most Conclusive Preliminary Test, and That
- Section 12.: On the Part of a Ruler, Willingness Or Unwillingness to See Established an All-comprehensive Code, With Its Rationale As Above, and to Receive Original Draughts From All Hands, Are Among the Most Conclusive Tests of Appropriate Aptitude,
- Part II.—TESTIMONIALS.
- I. England
- II. Geneva
- III.: Spain.
- IV.: Portugal.
- V.: Italy.
- VI.: France.
- VII.: Anglo-american United States.
- VIII.: Greece.
- IX.: South America.
LETTER XX.
HOSPITALS.
If any thing could still be wanting to show how far this plan is from any necessary connexion with severe and coercive measures, there cannot be a stronger consideration than that of the advantage with which it applies to hospitals; establishments of which the sole object is the relief of the afflicted, whom their own entreaties have introduced. Tenacious as ever of the principle of omnipresence, I take it for granted that the whole tribe of medical curators—the surgeon, the apothecary, the matron, to whom I could wish to add even the physician, could the establishment be but sufficient to make it worth his while, find in the inspection-lodge and what apartments might be added above it, their constant residence. Here the physician and the apothecary might know with certainty that the prescription which the one had ordered and the other made up, had been administered at the exact time and in the exact manner in which it was ordered to be administered. Here the surgeon would be sure that his instructions and directions had been followed in all points by his pupils and assistants. Here the faculty, in all its branches, might with the least trouble possible watch as much as they chose to watch, of the progress of the disease, and the influence of the remedy. Complaints from the sick might be received the instant the cause of the complaint, real or imaginary, occurred; though, as misconduct would be followed by instant reprehension, such complaints must be proportionably rare.
The separation of the cells might be in part, continued either for comfort or for decency. Curtains, instead of grating, would give the patients, when they thought fit, the option of being seen. Partitions of greater solidity and extent might divide the fabric into different wards, confining infection, adapting themselves to the varieties of disease. and affording, upon occasion, diversities of temperature.
In hot weather, to save the room from being heated, and the patients from being incommoded by the sun, shades or awnings might secure the windows towards the south.
I do not mean to entertain you here with a system of physic, or a treatise upon airs. But a word or two on this subject you must permit me. Would the ceilings of the cell be high enough? Is the plan of construction sufficiently favourable to ventilation? I have not the good fortune to have read a book published not long ago on the subject of hospitals, by our countryman Mr. Aikin, though I remember seeing some account of it in a review. But I cannot help begging of you to recommend to the notice of your medical friends, the perusal of Dr. De Maret’s paper, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Dijon for the year 1782. If either his facts or his reasoning are to be trusted, not only no loftiness of ceiling is sufficient to ensure to such a building a purity of air, but it may appear questionable whether such an effect be upon the whole promoted by that circumstance.
His great anxiety seems to be, that at some known period or periods of the day, the whole mass of air may undergo at once a total change, not trusting to partial and precarious evacuations by opening here and there a window; still less to any height or other amplitude of room—a circumstance which of itself tends to render them still more partial and precarious. Proscribing all rectilinear walls and flat ceilings forming angles at the junctions, he recommends accordingly for the inside of his building, the form of a long oval, curved in every direction except that of the floor, placing a door at each end. By throwing open these doors, he seems to make it pretty apparent, that the smallest draught will be sufficient to effect an entire change in the whole stock of air; since at which ever end a current of air happens first to enter, it will carry all before it till it gets to the other. Opening windows, or other apertures, disposed in any other part of the room, would tend rather to disturb and counteract the current, than to promote it.
From the same reasoning it will follow, that the circular form demanded as the best of all by the inspection principle, must, in a view to ventilation, have in a considerable degree the advantage over rectilinear; and even, were the difference sufficiently material, the inspection principle might be applied to his oval with little or no disadvantage. The form of the inspection lodge might in this case follow that of the containing building; and that central part, so far from obstructing the ventilation, would rather, as it should seem, assist it, increasing the force of the current by the compressure.
It should seem also, that to a circular building, the central lodge would thus give the same aptitude to ventilation, which the Doctor’s oval form possesses of itself.
To save his patients from catching cold while the current is passing through the room, the Doctor allows to each a short screen, like the head of a cradle, to be rested on the bed.
Here the use of the tin speaking-tubes would be seen again, in the means they would afford to the patient, though he were equal to no more than a whisper, of conveying to the lodge the most immediate notice of his wants, and receiving answers in a tone equally unproductive of disturbance.
Something I could have wished to say on the important difference between the general and comparatively immaterial impurity resulting merely from the phlogiston, and the various particular impurities constituted by the various products of putrefaction, or by the different matters of the various contagions. Against these very different dangers, the mode and measure of precaution might admit of no small difference. But this belongs not necessarily to the subject, and you would not thank me, any more than gentlemen of the faculty who understand it better than I, or gentlemen at large who would not wish to understand it.
An hospital built and conducted upon a plan of this kind, of the success of which everybody might be an observer, accessible to the patients’ friends, who, without incommoding or being incommoded, might see the whole economy of it carried on under their eye, would lose, it is to be hoped, a great part of those repelling terrors, which deprive of the benefit of such institutions many objects whom prejudice, in league with poverty, either debars altogether from relief, or drives to seek it in much less eligible shapes. Who knows but that the certainty of a medical attendance, not occasional, short-lived, or even precarious, as at present, but constant and uninterrupted, might not render such a situation preferable even to home, in the eyes of many persons who could afford to pay for it? and that the erection of a building of this kind might turn to account in the hands of some enterprising practitioner?
A prison, as I observed in a former letter includes an hospital. In prisons on this construction, every cell may receive the properties of an hospital, without undergoing any change. The whole prison would be perhaps a better hospital than any building known hitherto by that name. Yet should it be thought of use, a few cells might be appropriated to that purpose; and perhaps it may be thought advisable that some cases of infection should be thrown out, and lodged under another roof.
But if infection in general must be sent to be cured elsewhere, there is no spot in which infection originating in negligence can, either in the rise or spread of it, meet with such obstacles as here. In what other instance as in this, will you see the interests of the governor and the governed in this important particular, so perfectly confounded and made one?—those of the keeper with those of the prisoners—those of the medical curator with those of the patients? Clean or unclean, safe or unsafe, he runs the chance that they do: if he lets them poison themselves, he lets them poison him. Encompassed on all sides by a multitude of persons, whose good or bad condition depends upon himself, he stands as a hostage in his own hands for the salubrity of the whole.
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