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106 It was 12 a.m. before I could go over the Afzalganj Hospital, and then the drains seemed to overflow with disinfectants. Dressings were being carried away, and a foul smell met me at every turn in the over-crowded wards, and the whole place depressed me past words, although the minor official assured me that in his time great improvements had been made and that he remembered the day when men and women wore the same uniform and messed together on the open verandahs. The under-paid and over-worked nurses, the dirty blankets, the herding of children with grown-up people — well it all cried loudly for Florence Nightingale, the woman of whom Queen Victoria wrote, "She has such a clear brain. I wish we had her at the War Office."

The total expenditure by government on the Medical Department in 1321, Fasli (1912 A.D.), was 6,35,520 O. S. rupees; and it may be noticed that expenditure on this department has of late years become less and less and that during 1320-1321 Fasli (1910-1912 A.D.), not one rupee was spent on buildings.

In the districts I visited many hospitals and dispensaries, and I found them clean, but