SANTIAGO. 



211 



Ratio of Mortality in the several years. 



1840 1 oat of each 2. 80 



do 4.58 



do 3.85 



do 4.51 



do 4.75 



do 4.89 



do 4.81 



do 4.56 



1841 

 1842 

 1843 

 1844 

 1845 

 1846 

 1847 



Average 



do 4.34 



During these eight years, one hundred out of each four hundred and thirty-four who entered 

 the hospital died of their diseases a ratio of mortality much greater than at the hospital of 

 San Juan de Dios, the proportions there having been one hundred in every six hundred and 

 six. The cause of this great difference between two institutions on the same street is well 

 worthy of investigation by the medical men of Chile, more especially as they have for encourage- 

 ment in the task another fact developed in these tables, viz : a constant decrease in the ratio 

 of mortality in both hospitals. 



A foundling hospital (Casa de Expositos), or rather, an establishment where any one may 

 leave an infant in open daylight as well as in the darkness, to be brought up at the expense of 

 the public, was founded about the middle of the last century. The building is in the lower part 

 of the Catte de las Augustinas, but externally presents nothing to attract attention. At the 

 time it was instituted, it was perhaps intended, in good faith, for the benefit of poor orphans 

 and those whose unnatural parents had literally thrown them on the charity of the world. 

 But the obstacles interposed to marriages of the poor by curates in many of the parishes, the* 

 example of certain members of the monastic orders, and even some of the secular clergy them- 

 selves, and the passions of a people taught to believe that no crime is remembered by their 

 Maker after confession to the priest, have all combined to bring about a state of morals which 

 has actually converted the Casa de Expositos into an institution for the encouragement of vice. 

 Not only may the mother (or other) take her child to a revolving box fitted into the wall, and 

 turn it within the asylum, tapping a farewell knock to call the porters as its face is perhaps 

 forever removed from her sight, but she may also avail herself of the same institution to lie in, 



