<p><span class="deck"> With its roots in the medically benighted eighteenth century, and its history shaped by the needs of the urban poor, Bellevue has emerged on its 250th anniversary as a world-renowned center of modern medicine</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck"><lead_in> TODAY, NEARLY HALF</lead_in> a million men and women serve two-thirds of the country in a crucial volunteer service that began only recently, and only because a nine-year-old boy had witnessed a drowning.</span></p>
