Memorial Tablets in the Main Hall of the Hospital for the Sick, contain the following list of names of persons for whom beds have been established :

The history of the Pennsylvania Hospital, as it has been detailed in the earlier pages of this volume, consists in very large part of the acts and the achievements of the Managers, who are the representatives of the corporation of the Contributors in the administration of the affairs and government of the institution. Since the granting of the Charter by the Provincial Government in 1751, there has been a Valuable constant succession of active, earnest managers who have devoted Services of their energies and their time to the welfare of the Hospital. So successful and efficient has been their disinterested service that it has commanded universal commendation, both in this country and in England, the home of the former proprietors of Pennsylvania. The verdict of the community has been well summed up in an address delivered by Dr. John Forsyth Meigs, a member of the medical staff, on the occasion of the conclusion of the first quarter of the second century of the existence of the Hospital, in 1876. Dr. Meigs says:

Managers.

Appreciative Little could Dr. Thomas Bond, or even that many-sided genius, Franklin. tribute by a when they began their labors in the cause of this Hospital, foresee to what a member of height of honor and usefulness the institution would rise in the course of a the Medical century and a quarter. Dr. Thomas Bond died in 1784, and Franklin in 1790. Staff. They had lived long enough to see the birth of their idea, and its fair progress during the first thirty-odd years of its growth. But no foresight of theirs, either practical or poetic, could have told them that, in one hundred and twenty-five years, this institution would be spending annually, in the care of the sick and wounded, and insane patients, nearly twice as much money as its whole capital at the time of its foundation.

Address of

It has grown great. It has built great houses, and built them apparently on the rock. It has tended an army of the sick. Could the destitute sick poor, who have passed through its gates without charge, be marshalled into a visible array, Dr. Meigs at we should behold an army greater by three-fold than the largest Washington ever Anniversary commanded, and only a few thousand less than that with which Wellington Celebration. arrested at Waterloo the progress of the greatest and most insatiate conqueror of the modern world.

And how has this army been lodged, and fed, and ruled? Under what system of administration has all this been effected? Surely, the organization of so successful a staff as this must be worth some study.

The power-the active energy-in this machine, lies in the Board of Managers. This Board has but one check upon it, the fact that it must be elected annually by the contributors. The contributors represent the latent heat of the machine, which, should it become necessary, may burst into active energy of its own. Once a Manager elected, he serves so long as he serves well, if he will to do so, for the contributors do not believe, fortunately for this army of the poor, in rotation in office, but, the better a Manager does his work of managing, and the longer he has served, the better the contributors like him, and the less they will disturb him. And then-the beauty of it-to this day, he serves without pay. Were he paid, it is to be feared that the poor would be poorer, for then might come rotation in office, and locusts and grasshoppers, who, to exist, would have to appropriate some of the good things provided for the poor.

The Board of Managers, then, is the vis viva, the soul, heart, and mind of Disinterested the Pennsylvania Hospital. It is like the King-it never dies. Composed of Labors of the twelve men, it has cherished and ruled the Hospital for one hundred and twenty- Board of five years. It elects all the officers but the Treasurer. It collects and spends Managers. the money. It is responsible for each and every failure, and for every success. It chooses the medical and surgical staff for the sick and wounded department, and the physician-in-chief and the medical assistants for the insane department. Can any one say that it has not chosen well? Is it not one of the boasts of the Hospital, that it has always furnished to the poor, the best medical and surgical talent to be found in Philadelphia? It has secured for the poor many of the most distinguished medical names of the country, Bond, Cadwalader, Rush, Physick, Norris, Pancoast. But why should I prolong the list? All Philadelphia knows perfectly well that her ablest physicians and surgeons have been glad to serve the Pennsylvania Hospital.

The Board governs the expenditures. It must regulate the expenses by the income, and, when the means do not suffice for the needs of the institution, it has but one resource, the public, not State or city, but the general public. And we have seen already how well this public has been satisfied with the action of the Board, for has it not, in answer to such appeals, given large sums of money?

The Managers superintend the operations of the two departments of the Hospital by means of visiting Committees or visitors. The Board appoints two members of their body on each of these Committees, and the committees pay regular weekly visits to each branch of the institution. The members of the Committees inspect the wards, see the officers, hear reports, and examine accounts. These duties are now, and always have been performed, with great regularity. This system of visitation and inspection is of essential consequence to both branches; to the insane department, it is vital.

I have said that the Board has but one check upon it, the fact that it is elected annually by the contributors, but I must add that the Board acts under the original charter granted by the Provincial Assembly. In this charter, are several