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other hospitals we visited, bespoke invariable kindness. The chapel has two galleries for the patients of the upper story wards, and is, like the other parts of the building, light, warm, and cheerful. The reading-desk holds a copy of the four Gospels, large quarto in size, each page of which has been written in a legible and handsome style by a former inmate of the institution, and the wide vellum margins are illuminated with original designs, a different one appearing on each page. The oratory of the sisters is near the chapel, and their prayers are heard earliest in the morning and late at night. While St. Luke's is distinctively a Church hospital, however, and was founded by

urday might be instituted, as in London, when collection boxes could be left in public vehicles and resorts, such as dépôts, omnibuses, and street cars, for the reception of the penny of the multitude.

Another distinctive feature of St. Luke's is the privacy allowed to patients, each bed being surrounded by exquisitely clean white cotton curtains. The cleanliness of all the wards and the purity of air are not distinctive, but they are characteristic. The laundry is fitted with the same appliances as that of the New York Hospital, and the weekly wash averages about 6000 pieces. The quiet charm of the children's ward is seen again in the adults', where pictures

THE LAUNDRY AT ST. LUKE'S.

Episcopalians, it is not sectarian in its work, for during the year 1876-77 only 324 of the patients treated were members of that body, and the remainder included 483 other Protestants, 297 Roman Catholics, and 6 Jews. The average cost for each patient during treatment was forty-eight dollars six and a half cents, and the average cost for each person a day was one dollar one and five-eighths of a cent. By the recent introduction of the admirable English custom of having an annual collection made in the churches on a specified Sunday for the benefit of the hospitals, contributions have been gathered for St. Luke's on the last Sundays of December from Episcopal churches, the result last year having been over $5000; and in view of the non-sectarian character of the institution, collections might be made in other churches, and not for this hospital alone, but for hospitals generally; more than that, a Hospital Sat-

and other decorations, the sunny light and the gentle ministrations of the sisters, assume the weariness of the sufferers' confinement.

The Brooklyn Homœopathic Hospital is even more home-like than St. Luke's—not that the latter is wanting either in endeavor or intention, but because it is very much larger, and because as size increases, the coziness of the domestic circle decreases. Here, also, the nursing is done by a Protestant sisterhood, whose taste and industry have made the wards look very pretty indeed. The building is on Cumberland Street, and is small and unpretentious in its architectural form; it contains some sixty or seventy beds, all of which are free. It has only been open about four years, but in those four years, aside from the fact that it is one of the first homœopathic establishments of the kind in America, it has done splendid work. At the dispensary

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connected with it over 8000 patients are treated in a year without charge, and over 12,000 prescriptions issued and made up. The medicines, the board, and the nursing are all gratuitous, except to the occupants of a few private rooms, who pay a moderate

her in a boudoir that would charm the greatest ignoramus who ever slept in ignorance of Eastlake, although few of the decorations were costly, and the tasteful effects were mostly the result of home industry, like the book-shelves, which were partly made by

CONVALESCENTS, HOMŒOPATHIC HOSPITAL, BROOKLYN.

sum per week, according to their means; and the government is as mild as that of a well-disciplined family. It is the special aim of the managers, the sisterhood, and the society of ladies in connection with it to have as little red tape and fuss and feathers about it as possible.

Our amiable *cicerone* was Dr. A. E. Sumner, president of the medical and surgical staff, who devotes himself to the work with inexhaustible enthusiasm. "You must let me introduce you to our little sister," he said, as he led us up stairs from the dispensary in the basement to the first floor; and we found her in the prettiest little room conceivable, with a plethora of books, pictures, and knickknacks lying on the tables, covering the walls, and filling *étagères*, brackets, and shelves without number. We found

her own hands; but she was not a little sister at all—that allusion to her was a pleasure of the doctor's. One of the fullest and most beaming faces that ever left England behind, wreathing itself into constant smiles, shone under the broad white flaps of her cap and above the white lawn collar of her black dress; and her form was such a marvel of rotundity that, with the suggestions of the furniture before us, we could easily imagine her a prioress of mediæval times, and a very good prioress too, without an uncomfortable degree of asceticism in her nature. She took us through the wards, and in every corner we saw the most cleanliness and innumerable evidences of the thoughtful care bestowed upon the patients. The wards are scarcely larger than the bedrooms of a big country house,

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which modern science has discovered securing ventilation, cleanliness, and warmth has been introduced into it, and he recommends the adoption of the Roosevelt model in England. The garden contains, besides the

made by atomizing a weak solution, in which his hands, instruments, sponges, are also immersed. The blood-vessels are tied by carbolized cords, the edges of the wound closed by carbolized stitches, and, finally, layers of

THE ROOSEVELT HOSPITAL.

barrack ward, an isolated hut for the reception of erysipelas cases; and in summer, when the flowers and shrubs are blooming, it is much frequented by the convalescent patients. Sixteen hundred and seventeen cases were treated in 1876, 1451 of which were free; 602 were Americans, and 558 were Irish. The death rate of all the cases treated is nine per cent., or more than three per cent. less than that of Bellevue.

The hospital is particularly interesting to the profession from the fact that it was the first in this country to adopt, through the exertions of Dr. Robert F. Wier, the antisep tic method of treating wounds invented by Joseph Lister, a celebrated Scottish sur geon. This method, which has been devel oped by years of patient research, and has almost revolutionized surgery, is based on the experience that the inflammation which follows a wound, such as an amputation, is due to the decomposition of the discharges that are always formed on any cut surface. The substances formed by the decomposi tion give rise to erysipelas, hospital gan grene, etc., or they may be absorbed by the system with fatal result. Lister be lieves he has demonstrated that the cause of the putrefaction is due to the lodgment on the wound-secretions of minute living bodies floating in the air, and he discovered, after trying many other disinfectants, that carbolic acid would kill these germs. The principle, therefore, consists in surrounding a wound from its reception to its cure with an atmosphere charged with the vapor of the acid; and to accomplish this the sur geon operates amid a thin cloud of spray

gaume impregnated with carbolic acid and resin are bound over the wound and a considerable part of the adjoining skin, the res in causing the carbolic acid to be evolved slowly, so that the dressing need not be changed for several days. Dr. Wier consid ers the success of the method proven, and states that by its use the mortality re sulting from serious operations has been noticeably reduced, and that under it the closure of the most serious wounds is truly wonderful.

The Roosevelt Hospital was the last gift of James H. Roosevelt to humanity. He made it the sole legatee of a princely fortune, with the exception of a few bequests to individu als; and as he left no near relatives, the heir-looms of his house are stored in the trustees' room, and his body rests under a plain monument in the garden, with the in scription over it: "Upright in his aims, simple in his habits, and sublime in his benefac tion." The hospital is admirably managed by Dr. Horatio Paine, the gentlemanly su perintendent; and there is no limit to the charity it dispenses, except in the extent of its funds.

We have not purported being exhaustive, knowing that to be impossible within our space; and there are many hospitals in the city, such as the Presbyterian and the Mount Sinai, which for their extent and excellence of work deserve attention. The Fruit and Flower missions should also be remembered; but the most we have been able to do has been to describe some of the phases of hos pital life by selecting representative insti tutions.