is is of course for Germany.)

The question as to whether secular or religious management of
hospitals shall prevail has not been as yet absolutely decided, and
this adds to the value of Virchow's opinion. No one knew better than
he of the many sacrifices required if the patients are to be properly
cared for. Himself, as I have said, utterly without religion, it is
curious to see how he recognizes the benefit that religious motives
confer upon the management of a hospital, and how much better the work
is likely to be done by those who give themselves up to the care of
the sick as a Christian duty. He says:

"The general hospital is the real purpose of our time, and anyone
who takes up service in it must give himself up to it from the
purest of humanitarian motives. The hospital attendant must, at
least morally and spiritually, see in the patient only the helpless
and suffering man, his brother and his neighbor; and in order to be
able to {263} do this he must have a warm heart, an earnest
devotion, and a true sense of duty. There is in reality scarcely any
human occupation that brings so immediately with it its own reward,
or in which the feeling of personal contentment comes from thorough
accomplishment of purpose.

"But so far as the accomplishment of the task set one is concerned,
the attendant in the hospital has ever and anon new demands made
upon him and a new task imposed. One patient lies next the other,
and when one departs another comes in his place.

"From day to day, from week to week, from year to year, always the
same work, over and over again, only forever for new patients. This
tires out the hospital attendant. Then the custom of seeing
suffering weakens the enthusiasm and lessens the sense of duty.
There is need of a special stimulus in order to reawaken the old
sympathy. Whence shall this be obtained--from religion or from some
temporal reward? In trying to solve this problem we are standing
before the most difficult problem of modern hospital management.
Before us lie the paths of religious and simple care for the sick.
We may say at once that the proper solution has not yet been found.

"It may be easy, from an impartial but one-sided view of the
subject, to say that the feeling of duty, of devotion, even of
sacrifice, is by no means necessarily dependent on the hope of
religious reward, nor the expectation of material remuneration. Such