E974] 
favourable to the lives of infants, was an old building, which 
feemed not to have been originally defigned for an hofpital; in 
it there were but fix beds in a room with one door, one {mall 
and three large windows, with a ventilator to each of the latter , 
that their beds had curtains, but no canopies as in Dublin, and 
that the utmoft cleanlinefs was in every refpe& obferved. That 
in the City of London Hofpital, which is an elegant modern 
building, there are but feven beds toa ward, with two large and 
four {mall windows to each, one door with a large ventilator over 
it, the ceilings lofty and perforated by an air-pipe of feveral inches 
diameter, which paffes out at fome part of the roof. Here alfo 
the moft fcrupulous cleanlinefs is obferved, and large fupplies of 
clean linen given both for beds, women and infants ; and here the 
death of an infant is a rare occurrence, 
Lastiy. I alledged it was by no means inconfiftent with 
analogy or reafon to fuppofe that the accumulated effluvia arifing 
from the bodies of puerperal women and children in lying-in 
hofpitals might acquire qualities peculiarly noxious to the deli- 
‘cate frame of infants. That in other hofpitals and gaols, as the 
pernicious effects of accumulated human effluvia have been often 
experienced by robuft adults, it is poffible that degrees of con- 
tagion inferior to thefe may prove fatal to infants. I concluded 
with quoting the authority of Arbuthnot, who has obferved “ that 
“ the air of cities is very unfriendly to infants and children; for 
“ that as every animal is adapted by nature to the ufe of frefh and 
“ free air, the tolerance of air replete with fulphureous fteams of 
“ fuel and the perfpirable matter of animals (as that of cities) is 
O “ the 
