The weekly Shasta courier., 1873-03-22
Moscow's Government Babies.

Russia has large hospital where she
kindly cares for those poor unfortunate
little ones who would otherwise know
no care, but be left to miserably perish.
That after providing them with shelter
she still further looks after and protects
them is thus shown by the following
article from the pen of "Eli Perkins,
in the New York Commercial 4dver-
tiser. He says:
Fourteen thousand babies
That is just the number of babies
they had in 1867 in the great Hospital
Dom, in Moscow.
Where did they come from:
Well, they came mostly from the
city of Moscow. Some of them were
foundlings, some were the offspring of
naval and military officers, and many
belonged to the merchants and trades
people of the city. This great baby
hospital is the largest in the world. 1t
is baby-raising machine. If man is
a fowl land many men are fouI, as
Diogenes says, then this hospital is the
great national chicken-h hatcher for the
Russian empire.
This great baby hospital is managed
thus: The hospital is divided into, per-
haps, fifty wards.
One ward with competent physicians
and nurses will take care of babies one
and two and three days old-found-
lings.
Another ward with other physicians
and nurses will care for all the babies
perhaps 100 for three days to week
old.
In another ward will be all the ba-
bies from one week to two weeks old;
in another those from one month to two
months; in another those from two
months to four months; and so on till
one ward will take charge of children
ten years old.
There is one ward especially devoted
to babies with "scald head" Another
ward takes sore-eyed babies; another
malformations; another, babies diseas-
ed through paternal sins. Each of
these wards has one constant physician,
who makes the disease of his ward a
speciality. If it is the ward for sore
eyed babies, then the physician is post
ed on this disease. He has doctored
babies with sore eyes by the thousands.
He knows every phase of the disease.
Besides being skillfully educated as an
oculist, he has the experience of years
all the time doctoring sore-eyed ba-
bies. What wonder that he becomes
proficient, and that he should know
constantly what to do with any difficult
case of sore-eyes, which might puzzle
the most experienced physicians who
have not made that particular disease a
speciality?
So in the other sick wards, there
were physicians who looked after scald-
head, and made it a speciality. For
years this physician has attended thou
sands and thousands of cases of sore
head. He has seen the disease in
every form.
When the babies come, they enter at
the general office. The clerk takes its
name, ties little silver check about its
neck, and hands the duplicate to its
mother. If the baby's check is 942,
then the mother, when she wants to see
it, calls, hands in her check 942, and
the baby with the corresponding check
is produced.
As soon as the child is in possession
of the hospital officers, it is baptized
and sent to its respective ward.
The nurses-wet nurses-are healthy
country women, the wives of ex-serfs
(Mosheks). The diet of these women
is so selected that they shall produce
large quantities of healthful milk.
The babies are fed, washed, and
dressed with the utmost regularity.
Each nurse in ward has a specific
duty to perform. Take the ward hav-
ing the week-old babies: One nurse
will do nothing from morning to night
but undress babies; another nurse will
plunge them under streams of warm
water and wash them; another will
dress them up and toss them away,
while another will follow and nurse
them. So they 60 up and down the
sides of the ward, each baby being
washed, nursed, and dressed a certain
number of times each day. The little
thing learns to like its treatment.
Sometimes the nurses give them a toss
of several feet into the beds, or from
one woman to another, and the little
thing will laugh and screw up the fun
niest smiles.
After being nursed, they are rolled
up tight like an Indian baby, and laid
away. Their hands, arms, and legs,
are all wound up with strips Of linen
cloth. This is the only criticism l
could offer against their treatment of
babies-this pinioning their hands and
feet
Many good mothers, whose husbands
are in the army or navy, or even we'll
to-do tradesmen, send their offspring
here to be cared for. The treatment is
so superior that by far fewer babies die
than would die if left to the best care
of fond mother.