Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-07-02
This Remarkable Institution was
Founded by the Great Catharine
III. in Moscow.
A Description Of the Place as 1t Exists
To-day Under the Present
Gar.
Almost a Thousand Infants Cared fer
by Half as Many Wet
Nurses.

One OF the many remarkable institutions
that are to be found in Russia is the bio
founding Hospital of Moscow. The huge
barrack like structure, the largest building
IN the old capital, its regiment of wet
nurses and many hundreds of pulling in
fants make a vivid Impression on the
mind.
in the first room of the recovering de-
partment were about thirty raw Young
peasant women just in from the country.
They were candidates for the position of
wet nurse. waiting to be examined by the
doctor. They stood in a row like soldiers
and bowed respectfully and simultaneous.
ly to the matron and her visitors as we en-.
tered. Some looked very young as appli-
Giants for such position.
The next room was the receiving room
A female clerk sat at desk booking the
numbers, sex and description of the in
tants as they We're brought in Another
woman was just putting a baby in the
brass scuttle of a pair of scales to weigh
1t. 1t had been brought in by soldier,
who stated that his vie was i'll and
couldn't take care of it. After weighing
the infant they tied numbered tag around
Its neck and gave a duplicate tag to the
soldier. The only question asked concern
ing infants are whether they we were
not born in wedIock.
From the receiving room the infant
brought in by the soldier was passed to the
bath room where it received the | onefts
of warm water and soap. Here we = wet
nurses, who had been passed by the ctor,
had taken the regulation bat re-
CURED of all newcomers, and had
donned the dress of the institution, the
conspicuous feature being caps of blue,
green or red, says Thomas Stevens in the
New York World. After the bath the in
FAINT was assigned to one of these nurses.
who Immediately walked off with it to the
summer barracks.
Adjoining the bath room is the baptis-
NAL room, containing priest, gorgeous
icon and a font Here all infants who
have not been baptized outside are
Immediately converted into orthodox
Russians before being passed on to the
barracks.
They received fifty, sixty, seventy and
sometimes as many as eighty infants
in day. Last year they admitted Is, 479
infants
The babies are kept in the hospital
about six weeks, then sent out into the vii
lagos to be nursed. There are at present
847 infants on the premises and 545 wet
nurses After being received and kept in
the hospital six weeks the babies are pro-
vlded with numbered tag and passport,
and passed on, as stated above, to nurses
in distant villages, where they are nur-
tured at the expense of the institution till
they are four or five years old. At any time,
either before or after the expiration
of the term in the hospital, the
mother, or whoever brought the infant,
may reclaim it by means Of the duplicate
tag,
BY the time they have seen five sum-
mers many of the youngsters are adopted
in the villages to which they have been
assigned. The others are returned to the
institution, where they are educated, boys
and girls together, till they reach the age
of nine or ten. They are then separated.
The boys are sent to the government felt
shar schools, where they are taught the art
OF assisting army surgeons to saw off sol
diers' legs and army hospital as
sistants-and the girls are fitted cut with
clothes and assisted into places as house
maids and cooks. To the end of their
lives-at all events their, unmarried lives
the girls are considered wards of the
government, and SO long as they can prove
good conduct may always return to
the hospital temporarily when out of
situation,
We are conducted into the grounds
and the summer barracks. Here were
broad, well-kept grounds, laid off int
squares and shady avenues of big fine
elms. The day was soft and balmy, ar
ideal summer day, and the nurses and
their small charges were all outdoors.
Strung along the avenues under the shade
of the spreading elms were hundreds Of
little iron cribs, built light, so that nurse
would be able to carry ''cradle, baby
and all, in and out of the barracks.
Each crib was broad enough to accom-
modate two infants, and in charge of each
crib was nurse, foster-mother to the oc-
cupants. Most of the nurses as will be
understood by the figures given, we're re-
quired to nurse two babies-an easy tax ON
them, judging from appearances.
Each nurse carries passport and a
paper that goes with the crib and the in
fants that are given into her charge. These
precautions are necessary to prevent the
stream of human atoms ever passing
through the hospital from getting hope
lessly mixed and their individual identity
lost forever.
The nurses are fed on black bread, cab
bage, soup, buckwheat and millet cruel
and kwass. They are also allowed small
indulgences In weak tea, without which
any Russian woman or man, would think
themselves ill-used. Nurses to whom very
weakly infants are assigned are allowed
more nourishing food, such as meat, pota-
toes. beer, etc.
The most interesting of the barracks
was that one devoted to weakly infants
and those who had ventured into the world
ahead of their time This is known as the
hospital of warm barracks. Even on this
summer day it was heated by artificial
means. Besides the row of cribs 1T con-
tanned several incubators for the reception
of the aforesaid venturesome young
people.
The infants in this barricks were a truly
pitiful assortment A newborn babe IS
not a beautiful object to gaze upon, and
there was something positive uncanny, at
least to man, In the appearance OF these
tiny creatures, callow looking as young
birds who have ventured into the big
world SO young and so small as to scarce.y
seem like human These m1dgets mostly
swathed in linen pandages, so that moth
ing was visible but the head. They look
ed like tightly-rolled young, nummies
The nurses picked them up with one hand;
as one might pick up rag doll, and held
them in a curiously matter of-fact way.
Some of them seemed scarcely alive. One
nurse picked up pair OF them from the
Grip that belonged to her, one IN each
hand and held them up to US for lnspec.-
ton as a dealer would hold up pair OF
images. One of them moved its mouth a