Cambridge sketches
Estelle M. H. Merrill, Ed.

The Cambridge Hospital, with which the name of Miss Emily E. Parsons, its first instigator, must always be honorably associated, was opened for patients in April, 1886. It is unusually comfortable and cheerful in aspect even for a hospital. The sun seems to shed its most genial glow over it in winter, and the breeze which sweeps through it in summer always strikes one as freshet than that obtainable in any other spot in the city. How much of this is due to the effect of that spirit of mutual forbearance and cheerful resignation, which reigns supreme here as in hospital wards everywhere, and how much to the wisdom of the original plan and the efficiency of the management, need not be determined. That a city of the size of Cambridge could wait so long before equipping itself with the means of caring for its sick poor may be a matter of surprise to those who have not reflected that in this, and other respects, we are inevitably suburban, however independent of Boston we are in civic matters.

The Holy Ghost Hospital opened the doors of a small frame house-its temporary home-only in January of 1895, to admit incurable patients of all kinds from all accessible points, though no doubt the preference always will be given to Cambridge sufferers. Though the fund hitherto secured has come through a Roman Catholic parish in Cambridge it is hoped that the future support as well as the usefulness of the hospital will be unsectarian and perfectly general.

The Middlesex Dispensary was established in July, 1892, under a staff of physicians who give each three hours a week to the work. Over fourteen thousand patients have had the benefit of free consultation and medicine at cost during the three years of its existence.