ABSTRACT
Each morning Elizabeth Garrett Anderson went to her hospital to make ward rounds. As she passed from bed to bed the members of her retinue, house surgeon, dressers and students from the school, learnt that in these crowded, poky rooms their chief insisted on standards of work worthy of a great teaching hospital. On diagnosis her teaching was: ‘Get away from the bondage of theories and hypotheses; be able to question and cross-question facts until their full meaning becomes plain.’ If she detected carelessness or inaccuracy, she could be scathing. ‘There is absolutely no demand for an increased supply of mediocre doctors of either sex.’ Visitors to 220–2 Marylebone Road marvelled at the quality of work that was done in the two little houses.
