important Thursday mornings, the almoner,
and physician, and surgeon, enter the
admission-room from the hall, attended by the
beadle, and usually by matron and steward.
About eighty to a hundred patients are
usually present, the majority being males.
The number of vacant beds being reported,
the medical officers begin the task of inspection.
One after another the names of the
patients most in need are written on the
petitions. This done, the names of the applicants,
to whom beds have been allotted, are
read aloud, the list of women being called
over first; the men next. The number thus
selected for treatment " in the house " varies
very much, but being settled for the day, the
words " No more beds vacant " are shouted
out, and those still waiting receive letters as
out-patients. The sisters of the ward next
enter the room to muster the cases allotted to
each. The names of the patients for Hope
are called out by Sister Hope, when off she
marches, with them in the rear, to Hope
Ward. Sister Charity then goes through her
list, which done, off she walks with her flock
of sick behind her, and so on until all are
drafted towards their respective places in the
building. Those unable to walk are carefully
taken by chaise à porteur. Before being taken
to their respective beds they are put into
warm baths, and those who need it have
suitable garments lent them; though almost
all, as a rule, comply with the usual requirements
of a hospital, and bring with them the
clothing requisite for a sick bed.

As the patients thus file off, a balance of
rejected candidates are seen being lifted into
cabs, or being led by their friends through
the hospital gates. About six thousand in-
patients are admitted every year, but even
Bartholomew's, large as it is, cannot hold all
who ask admission to its wards.

By about half-past twelve all this selection,
separation, and allocation of the sick has
been finished; and as many of them reach
the wards, the first sound they hear is a
voice up the speaking tubes that tells it is
dinner-time. One porter makes this known
in a very few minutes through all the rooms
in an entire wing, for, in the hall, ranged side
by side, are mouth-pieces communicating
with each ward. Up comes the voice, and off
file the nurses with their cards and tickets
showing how many dinners they are to draw,
and of what kind.

The food for five hundred people having
been served out, taken to bed-sides, and ward-
tables, and arranged, another half-hour has
gone, and by this time the neighbourhood of
the Apothecary's shop is besieged by hosts of
out-patients waiting to see the assistant-
physicians, and assistant-surgeons, and, when
they have been prescribed for, waiting for
the physic they are to take.

The Apothecary's shop and that physic
factory—the laboratory—which adjoins it are
amongst the most curious portions of the
entire establishment. Passing through the
throng of patients—who (women in one
room and men in the other) are ready, each
in turn, to pass through the turnstile which
prevents crowding, by allowing only one or
two at a time to reach the counter where the
medicines are served out—we cross the
dispensing-room, and descending a step or two,
find ourselves in the laboratory. The floor
is stone and the roof high. On one side
fumes a steam-engine; next it are large
coppers fixed in brickwork, and having most
capacious coverings, looking like huge copper
nightcaps large enough to cover the heads of
a whole family of giants. Each of these is
moved up from the simmering, steaming
mass within by means of pulleys, and other
machinery. Mr. Wood, who, like Mr. Paget,
is one of the omnipresent people of
Bartholomew's, reigns chief magician over this region
of stills, funnels, crucibles, evaporating pans,
and potent things. He raises one lid just an
inch, when out gushes a fragrant aromatic
steam of boiling sarsaparilla; he lifts another,
and we note the soporific fumes of syrup of
poppies. A little further on we see an
assistant mixing up gallons of treacle for
syrups and confections, and another opening
casks full of the pulp of hips, and mixing it
with large masses of sugar; an early process
in the preparation of a popular tincture for
coughs. How many millions of wild roses
must have blossomed in quiet country hedge-
rows before even one of five casks could be
filled with the pulp of hips; how many
bright autumn days must have been spent in
gathering the ripe fruit of those wild flowers
from the rural English banks where they grew!
They come chiefly from Hertfordshire, and
are plucked by children, who take out the
seeds and store up the pulp, which comes
here by the hundred-weight.

But the things in this alchemist-looking place
are not all so pleasant to think of, or so harmless
to smell as the rose fruits and the sarsaparilla.
The men in the corner there, are preparing
and extracting the poisonous juices of henbane
and foxglove, and monkshood. The fumes
come oft, and, hardened as they are to the
work, they will all suffer more or less from
their task, before they have done. They
are always, more or less, sick after it, and
were they always so employed, it would
doubtless cost them their lives. Happily a
little poison goes a long way, and to-morrow,
or next day, they will be engaged in the
more harmless duty of mixing the thirteen
gallons of black dose, which the house re-
quires regularly twice a week, and sometimes
thrice! All round the place run pipes containing
hot distilled waters, and others conveying
steam, by means of which a boiling
heat can be got under the evaporating pans,
or in the coppers. The evaporating dish in
the corner is made of solid tin, and though
holding about a gallon only, the metal for it
cost fifteen pounds. Next this dish stands a