160 BAILLY. 



fined, two were put to sleep together. Two madmen in 

 the same sheets ! Nature revolts at the very thought of 

 it. 



In the ward of St. Francis, reserved exclusively for 

 men having the smallpox, there were sometimes, for 

 want of other space, as many as six adults or eight chil- 

 dren in a bed not a metre and a half wide. 



The women attacked with this frightful disease were 

 mixed in the ward of St. Monique with others who had 

 only a simple fever, and the latter fell an inevitable prey 

 to the hideous contagion, in the very place where, full of 

 confidence, they had hoped to recover their health. 



Women with child, women in their confinement, were 

 equally crowded, pell-mell, on narrow and infected 

 truckle-beds. 



Nor let it be supposed that I have borrowed from 

 Bailly's Report some purely exceptional cases, belonging 

 to those cruel times, when whole populations, suffering 

 under some epidemic, were tried beyond all human an- 

 ticipation. In their usual state, the beds of the Hotel 

 Dieu, which were not a metre and a half wide, contained 

 four, and often six patients ; they were placed alternately 

 head and feet, the feet of one touching the shoulders of 

 the next ; each had only for his share of space 25 centi- 

 metres (9 inches) ; now, a man of medium size, lying 

 with his arms close to his body, is 48 centimetres (16 

 inches) broad at the shoulders. The poor patients then 

 could not keep within the bed but by lying on their side 

 perfectly immovable ; no one could turn without pushing, 

 without waking his neighbour ; they therefore used to 

 agree, as far as their illness would allow, for some of 

 them to remain up part of the night in the space between 

 the beds, whilst the others slept; and when the ap- 



