Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/570

536 to poor women old sheets and coverlets, as well as bandages and crutches to cripples.” Among the inferior officials were a seretary to the “prud’hommes,” a “ clerk of the habit,” or steward, a to take charge of the linen and furniture, a “botte-gliere” for the wine, bread, oil, etc., two cooks, one purveyor, and fourteen ward servants. Also an “armoriere,” who had charge of all the silver plate. This latter was considerable in quantity, most of the utensils being of that metal, less as a matter of ostentation than of cleanliness. The following list shows of what the plate of the hospital consisted in the early part of the eighteenth century:—250 bowls, 356 dishes, 1 large dish, 167 cups, 3 large basins, 12 basins, 256 spoons, 10 large spoons, 10 forks, 43 quart measures, 4 drinking cups, 1 drinking vessel, I casket, 13 lamps, 8 pots in sizes, 4 jugs, 1 salver. The whole weighed nearly 15,000 ounces. The following is a list of the wards:—

A ward for knights and members of the Order. Two good rooms for the wounded of the Order. A ward for laity, priests, and pilgrims. A large ward for fevers and other mild cases. A small ward for very serious cases, and for the dying. A ward for those suffering from dysentery, and for lithotomy cases. A ward for the wounded not of the Order. A large ward for galley slaves. A ward for maniacs. Two wards for patients undergoing mercurial treatment. A ward for those who take hot baths outside the infirmary. In every ward a chapel was fitted for the celebration of mass, in addition to the chapel of the Holy Sacrament.

The beds numbered 370 with curtains, and 375 without curtains; total, 745. The average total of sick in the hospital was about 400 at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

For the comfort of the invalids in winter, the walls of the wards were hung with woollen curtains (evidently in utter ignorance of all sanitary’ knowledge). In summer these were taken down, and pictures placed on the walls, “representing the history of the Holy Religion.” There were eighty-five of such pictures. The regulations about food were as follow:—“The