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medical col leges were maintaining their high position of disinterested
-uardians of the Public Health, and successfully carrying out these
fun ctions under circumstances of difficulty and obloquy .
It is due to Dr Hall that we should notice, with appreciation
which they certainly merit, his searching analyses of the
defects of the sanitary management of the institution in
question, and his enlightened acquaintance with the latest
reported conclusions pub lished in this country . The reports
of the Sanitary Commissioners , the tables and reports of our
great military schools and public asylums , are all laid under
contribution to illustrate the necess ity for proper variation
of di et, for frequency of meals, augmentation of food, and
improvement in lavatories , drains and venti lation. 7
The Australian Medical Journal also warmly supported Hall with two articles
in its Apri l, 1860, number. The first of these cons isted of two letters ,
one of which was written by Hall on January 23 , 1860, to Messrs West Ford
and Fletcher, Honorary Medical Officers of the Orphan Asylum , Melbourne,
from whom he requested information on the mortality rate of orphans under
their care, the amount and mode of rationing , and other details of
management. It was in this letter that Hall made that never-to-be
forgotten statement which damned forever the management of the convict
regime .
Now that the Asylum here is transferred from the Convict to
the Colonial autho rities, many changes have been made , and
others projected. Thank God, some of the heartless brutes
who thought flogging three times a day, and solitary
confinement on bread and water, moral and medical treatment
for the physical weakness of rtwetting the bed" are no longer
in power ; and though all the elements of mischief are not
eliminated from the new Board of Management, yet I believe
and trust the preponderance of men with "hearts of flesh" is
sufficiently great to prevent the horrible atrocities of the
past ever having a chance of recurring for the futur e.
'
The second letter wa s written by F.T. West Ford, Senior Surgeon to
the
Protestant Orphan Asylum , Melbourne, in reply to Hall's request for
information.
It revealed a far happi er, more humane, liberal situation
in Melbourne where the death rate was
four to five times less than in
Hobarton .
In the
second article "The Hobarton Orphan Asylum" the editors
of the
Aus tralian Medical Journal took the opportunity afforded by the
two letters to contrast the two institutions , each designed to serve
the
same end but in a different yet closely related country.
In the
7 Ibid.