486 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



through the windows and the seating of convalescent patients in the 

 sun. The beds were separated by low, wooden partitions which were 

 portable, making the alcoved recesses part of one large hall at will, so 

 that when mass was celebrated in the center of the building the altar 

 was visible from all parts of the ward. 



Mr. Arthur Dillon, an architect, whose scholarly article on this 

 hospital appeared in 1904, says of its construction : 



It was an admirable hospital in every way, and it is doubtful if we to-day 

 surpass it. It was isolated, the ward separated from the other buildings, it had 

 the advantage we so often lose of being one story high, and more space was 

 afforded each patient than we can afford. 



Now as to the management of these medieval hospitals. In the 

 monasteries the superintendency was in the hands of the abbot or prior 

 and the institution was subject to monastic rule. Even in the privately 

 endowed hospitals practically all the hospital attendants were members 

 of some religious community. How well these communities did their 

 work and with what real humanitarian zeal is attested by Virchow. 10 



In the military orders, the knights called their chief administrative 

 officer commander; in the city hospitals this officer was called magister 

 or rector. The rector was appointed by the bishop, the municipality 

 or the patron. Laymen were eligible for this position and in many 

 legacies lay control was stipulated as a condition. This rector was 

 obliged to take inventories, render and keep accounts, act as trustee for 

 hospital property and frequently to receive and assign patients. 



Usually the attendants were males, although in some hospitals male 

 nurses had charge of surgical cases, while females conducted the ob- 

 stetric and children's wards. Board and clothing were provided these 

 nurses, but no salary. Details of dress, food and recreation were rigidly 

 prescribed, with appropriate penalties for infractions of the rules. 



Patients were admitted from all classes and beliefs without quali- 

 fication, and once admitted the patient was treated as a master of the 

 house, " quasi dominum secundum posse domus," to quote literally from 

 the regulations. He was bathed, his ills attended to, and if a Christian 

 was confessed by the chaplain. 



The regulations specified that the sick should never be left unat- 

 tended, that nurses should be on duty at all hours of the day and night, 

 and that patients dangerously ill should be removed from public wards 

 to a private room. Santo Maria Nuova, at Florence, had a separate 

 ward for delirious patients, and maternity cases were attended in a 

 separate pavilion and kept in the hospital for three weeks after delivery. 

 Sound hygiene is evidenced in numerous regulations concerning changes 

 of bedding, ventilation, and heating by stoves and braziers. 



10 ' ' Gesammelte Abhandlungen aus dem Gebeite der "Offentlichen Medecin 

 und der Seuchenlehre, " von Eudolph Virchow, Berlin, 1879, tr. in "The Popes 

 and Science," Jas. J. Walsh, Fordham University Press, 1911, pp. 256, 263. 



