The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the rôle of physical therapy in its relation to patients admitted into a general hospital.
It seems proper at this time to indicate wherein the general hospital more completely realizes what hospitals are expected to accomplish. In its physical plant, well-organized medical, and efficient nursing staff, it should represent in highest efficiency the essential coordinating factors for conserving the patient's best welfare.
The primary function of the hospital is to cure disease, and to relieve suffering. A hospital which fails to cure a patient, who is theoretically curable, fails to that extent to perform its proper function.
The subject of hospital care and treatment is the patient and not the disease, so that the hospital should include in its physical equipment and in its medical organization the means of dealing with any pathologic condition, or complication of disease, expected or unexpected, in