Medicine, and every other relief "under the calamity of bodily diseases and casaalties," no less than the daily necessaries of life, are natural provisions, which God has made for our present indigent state, and which he has granted in common to the children of men, whether they be poor or rich; to the rich, by inheritance or acquisition; and by their hands to the disabled poor.
Nor can there be any doubt, but that public infirmaries are the most effectual means of administering such relief; besides that they are attended with incidental advantages of great importance; both which things have been fully shown, and excellently enforced, in the annual sermons upon this and the like occasions.
But, indeed, public infirmaries are not only the best, they are the only possible means by which the poor, especially in this city, can be provided,* in any competent measure, with the several kinds of assistance which bodily diseases and casualties require. Not to mention poor foreigners, it is obvious no other provision can be made for poor strangers out of the country, when they are overtaken by these calamities, as they often must be, whilst they are occasionally attending their affairs in this centre of business. But even the poor who are settled here, are in a manner strangers to the people amongst whom they live; and, were it not for this provision, must unavoidably be neglected, in the hurry and concourse around them, and be left unobserved to languish in sickness, and suffer extremely, much more than they could in less populous places, where every one is known to every one, and any great distress presently becomes the common talk; and where also poor families are often under the particular protection of some or other of their rich neighbours, in a very different way from what is commonly the case here. Observations of this kind show, that there is a peculiar occasion, and even a necessity, in such a city as this, for public infirmaries, to which easy admittance may be had: and here in ours no
