appropriate treatment is effectually carried out,
and here it is most thoroughly and completely
managed. As soon as the complaint is detected,
the infant is removed to the ward set apart for
these cases. It is bathed in a medicated bath
every day, and well rubbed over with a peculiar
ointment. Then soft linen rollers are neatly
passed round every limb and round the whole
body, and a woollen loose robe over it all; and
by renewing the immersion daily, and applying
it skilfully and thoroughly, in a very short time
the baby is well enough to be replaced in the
ordinary ward.

There are other wards for different illnesses,
but the only one deserving particular notice is the
ward for ophthalmia: a not uncommon malady
among new-born children. Out of the twelve
hundred infants in the house, there were rather
more than sixty with ophthalmia in various
stages. This ward is kept shaded with dark
green blinds, and is especially guarded from
currents of cold air. In advanced cases of
ophthalmia, there is a great swelling in the
eyelids, and a quantity of yellow matter collects
behind them, pressing upon the inflamed eyes and
aggravating all the symptoms. The complaint
is, generally, easily cured, when care is taken
that the eyes are constantly and properly
washed, and mild lotions properly applied.
But ordinary nurses in England rarely attend
to this effectually—they either are ignorant and
cannot; or are idle or prejudiced, and will not;
or are timid and tender-hearted, and dare not.
They do not open the eyes and let out the
confined matter, because they do not like to make
the child cry—and if told to apply a lotion, they
satisfy their consciences by applying it outside.
We witnessed the process practised at this
hospital, and it was excellently managed. At a table
with a metal top. and with raised edges about two
inches high all round, and with a small fountain
of warm water in the centre conveyed in any
direction as a douche by an india-rubber pipe,
stood one of the young nurses, with a flat oiled-
silk pillow on the table before her. She had an
assistant at her elbow. A file of wet-nurses, each
with her blind baby, stood in a line to her right:
each wet-nurse with a square piece of linen rag
on the top of her head. They all came forward
one by one—the children being partly undressed
—and each in turn handed her child to the
head nurse. She placed it on its back on the
flat pillow, drew down the lower eyelid with her
left hand while the assistant lifted up the upper
eyelid, then with her right hand directed the
douche of warm water thoroughly into the eye
until every portion of the matter was washed
away. She then took the piece of rag off the
wet-nurse's head, wiped the eye carefully with
it, applied a lotion within each eyelid as it was
laid bare, and tossed the piece of rag into a
heap; thus, all fresh contagion was avoided, as
each child had brought its own rag, and all the
pieces were thoroughly washed and purified
before being used again. The child was then
handed to its nurse and went off to its own cot.
The whole process scarcely occupied a minute.

In another department we witnessed the
vaccination. There were two resident surgeons
engaged, and about sixty babies present: half
the number to be vaccinated from the arms
of the other half, then on the eighth day.
There was the same regular order—each wet-
nurse marching up in turn, holding her bed
ticket with its number, and showing her baby's
arm. On one arm, there were two vesicles,
which were left undisturbed—on the other arm
six vesicles, which were used for vaccinating
others, and for procuring supplies of lymph
to be sent to a distance, between small flat
squares of glass. On one side of the operator
marched up the nurse with the baby from whose
arm the lymph was to be taken, and on the other
the nurse whose baby was to be vaccinated,
and the surgeon very rapidly transmitted the
vaccine virus from one arm to the other,
tapping the vesicles with his lancet, and then
passing it tenderly beneath the skin of the other
arm. In doing this, we never saw a drop of
blood, and at the moment of insinuating the
point of the instrument, he gave it a sudden
twist, as if to wipe off the lymph thoroughly
from it. Whether it was this twist which
ensured its efficacy or not, it is a fact that in all the
cases, then at the eighth day after the operation,
there was not a single failure: each had its two
full vesicles on one arm, and its six on the other.

There are rarely less than one thousand
children in this establishment—and in the
year ending the 31st of December, 1859,
fourteen thousand had been admitted; but
that number was above the average, and in
some years there are from one to two
thousand less. All who apply are admitted—
there are no restrictions. There is no turning
box, as in some of the continental foundling
hospitals—at Rome, Florence, Naples, for
instance, where a child is deposited, a bell rung, the
child taken out of the box, and the bearer never
seen; but here every child is brought openly, at
particular hours in the morning, and certain
questions are asked, and the answers are all
registered. From seven A.M. to two P.M. all comers
are admitted; by far the larger portion are
children born in wedlock; but a considerable
number of the parents of such children
do not choose to divulge their names, and
they are consequently entered in the list as
probably illegitimate. The person who brings
the child declares its sex—the date of
its birth—the names of its parents (if the
person chooses to give them), and at all
events the christian name of its father, and
whether the rite of baptism has been already
performed or not. If it has been baptised, its
name is registered; if not, it is baptised within
a day or two, by any surname the bearer chooses
to declare; but if only the christian name of
the father has been given, then it is surnamed
accordingly such a one's son, Petrovitch or
lanovitch, answering to our Peterson or Johnson,
as it may happen to be, and the christian name
is always the name of the saint whose feast it
may be on the day of the baptism, so that the