Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/219

Rh same institution, is under the direction of an abbess and a prior, who are at this time charged with the education of eighteen young girls, that being the determinate number belonging to the foundation. The latter are maintained and reared at the expence of the establishment; and, in addition to them, a certain number of young ladies belonging to Lima receive their education in the college. Of this description there are at present seven.

Up to the year 1784, the number of female patients under cure in the hospital never exceeded seventy at any one given time, and might, on a mean calculation, be rated at forty. Since that date there has been an extraordinary increase in the total number of cures. The entries and discharges of the patients being calculated on an average of two years, give a result of one thousand one hundred and thirty-six cured annually. During a space of twelve months, reckoning from the commencement of July 1786, on account of the great prevalence of malignant sore throats and measles among the people, one thousand five hundred and eighty-two patients were admitted. In the month of May 1790, ninety beds were occupied, eighty-four by sick, and the others by insane women.

In this hospital the utmost decency is observed. The patients are well attended, and have every convenience they can wish. Notwithstanding the above cited rents are so small, the establishment has to sustain an annual expence of about nineteen thousand piastres. There have, indeed, been years when the expenditures have amounted to twenty-four thousand. The alms of the citizens, and the bounties of