BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENTS. 



same institution, is under the dire6lion of an abbess and a 

 prior, who are at this time charged with the education of 

 eighteen young girls, that being the determinate number be- 

 longing to the foundation. The latter are maintained and 

 reared at the expence of the establishment ; and, in addition 

 to them, a certain number of young ladies belonging to Lima 

 receive their education in the college. Of this description 

 there are at present seven. 



Up to the year 1784, the number of female patients under 

 cure in the hospital never exceeded seventy at any one given 

 time, and might, on a mean calculation, be rated at forty. 

 Since that date there has been an extraordinary increase in tlie 

 total number of cures. The entries and discharges of the pa- 

 tients being calculated on an average of two years, give a 

 result of one thousand one hundred and thirty-six cured an- 

 nually. During a space of twelve months, reckoning from 

 the commencement of July 1786, on account of the great pre- 

 valence of malignant sore throats and measles among the 

 people, one thousand five hundred and eighty-two patients 

 were admitted. In the month of May 1790, ninety beds 

 were occupied, eighty-four by sick, and the others by insane 

 women. 



In this hospital the utmost decency is observed. The pa- 

 tients are well attended, and have every convenience they 

 can wish. Notwithstanding the above cited rents are so 

 small, the establishment has to sustain an annual expence 

 of about nineteen thousand piastres. There have, indeed, 

 been years when the expenditures have amounted to twen- 

 ty-four thousand. The alms of the citizens, and the bounties 



of 



