purpose of sale, any drug or medicine, in such a manner as to render the same injurious to health, he shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year, or by fine not exceeding four hundred dollars, and such adulterated drugs and medicines shall be forfeited and destroyed."

This act gives sufficient legal authority to prevent the evil. If it be carefully observed, and only those dealers who are properly qualified for their business, and are of known honesty and integrity, receive public patronage, and those of an opposite character are discountenanced, and instances of flagrant abuse prosecuted and punished, it may be reasonably supposed that the evil will greatly diminish.

XLIV. WE RECOMMEND that institutions be formed to educate and qualify females to be nurses of the sick.

It is hardly necessary to commend the importance of good nursing in the cure of disease. Let a physician be ever so skilful, and prescribe his remedies with ever so much care and sagacity, if the nurse does not follow his directions, or if she neglects her duty, or performs it unskilfully, or imperfectly, or with an improper disposition, the remedies will be unsuccessful, and the patient will suffer; and perhaps life is lost as the consequence. On the other hand, let a physician of moderate capacity prescribe with ordinary skill, if his orders are carried into execution by a nurse, who understands, loves, and conscientiously discharges her duty, the patient is relieved, and life is preserved as the consequence. It is thus that bad nursing often defeats the intention of the best medical advice, and good nursing often supplies the defects of bad advice. Nursing often does more to cure disease than the physician himself; and, in the prevention of disease and in the promotion of health, it is of equal and even of greater importance. Many and many a life, which might have been saved, has been lost in the hands of quack nurses, as well as in those of quack doctors.

In consequence of the great ignorance which generally prevails in regard to the laws of health, and the causes and cure of disease, there are few females or others who are really capable of acting as intelligent nurses. Many, it is true, announce themselves as professional nurses, and many in more private

life suppose themselves capable; but how few really understand the duties of a nurse, or the domestic management of the sickroom, and how many lives are sacrificed in the hands of the ignorant! We have long desired that some remedy should be devised for this imperfection of our social life.

In 1836, there was founded at Kaiserswerth, a city on the Rhine, in Prussia, an "Institution of Protestant Deaconesses and Nursing Sisters." Its original object was the care of the sick and poor in the neighborhood of its location. A hospital was erected, into which the sick were admitted, and also such females of proper age as wished to devote themselves to the nursing and care of the sick. Here these females remained for a sufficient period of time to receive a thorough education in the knowledge and practice of the nursing and care of the sick; and they were afterwards sent forth on their mission of mercy, to diffuse the blessings of their superior education wherever their services might be wanted. Some have been employed in the care of the sick in their own homes, others at the expense of private charitable institutions, and others in public hospitals. Its original object has been extended, and it has become an immense central institution, having the highest object of benevolence, and promising the greatest benefits to humanity.

To the Rev. Thomas Fliedner, pastor of a Protestant church in Kaiserswerth, belongs the honor of founding this noble institution. He paid a visit to the United States in 1849, and one of this commission had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. From a notice of the institution, which he furnished, we make the following extracts :

"The success which the establishment at Kaiserswerth has met with has been very great. For, according to the twelfth printed report for 1849, above 115 deaconesses are now at work in different parts of Germany and England. Sixty-six are occupied in twenty-five hospitals and orphan-houses at Berlin, Dresden, Frankfort, Worms, Cologne, Elberfeld, London, etc. Sometimes, in a large congregation, which has no hospital, several of these nurses go about as mothers of the poor and sick, supporting and nursing them in their dwellings, and reporting their wants to their pastors and the overseers.

"The hospital at Kaiserswerth has received in these thirteen years about 3,500 patients, of both sexes, and of all religious persuasions, afflicted with divers diseases; many of them were admitted gratuitously.

"Some deaconesses have also been educated at Kaiserswerth, for hospitals in Switzerland, France, and Holland; and the calls from many parts of the continent, for deaconesses from Kaiserswerth, are so numerous, that this establishment cannot satisfy them all. It results from the testimonies of the administration and the medical officers of those public institutions, and it is a fact of general notoriety, that wherever these deaconesses have been intrusted with the care of a hospital, a visible change for the better takes place in all departments, and the satisfaction, the gratitude, and the blessings of the patients follow these self-devoted nurses everywhere.

"On the fifth of July, 1849, the Rev. Mr. Fliedner brought over, from the parent institution, four of these deaconesses, to the United States, to take charge of an infirmary established in Pittsburg, Pa., by the Rev. Wm. Passavant. It is proposed in this institution, likewise, to qualify other Christian females as deaconesses, to nurse the sick and poor in other American hospitals, congregations, and families. In this way, we trust, the new infirmary at Pittsburg will become, under God's blessing, a centre of light, love, and mercy.

"To the Christian reader it will be interesting to know, that the provision for the care of the sick and poor is not the only blessing which the parent establishment diffuses over many lands. It contains also three branch institutions, for other purposes :-First, a seminary, to train young females for infant, day, and industrial schools, which has already educated more than 370 such teachers for different parts of Europe, by the instrumentality of whom many thousands of poor children have been rescued from ignorance and misery, and led to their heavenly Friend. Secondly, an orphan asylum, connected with the mother-house, where twenty-five to thirty orphans of clergymen, missionaries, schoolmasters, &c., are educated by the sisters, in a Christian manner, as nurses, school-mistresses, &c. And third, a branch institution, designed to educate deaconesses

for the nursing and moral improvement of female prisoners. This branch is therefore connected with an asylum for released female prisoners, which Pastor Fliedner founded sixteen years ago, and which has received since then more than one hundred and eighty poor, deeply-fallen individuals, many of whom have been enabled, by Christian instruction, to become good servants, and respectable members of society."

The eminent success which attended these establishments has led to the formation of similar ones in other places on the continent of Europe, and in England. From an interesting notice which appears in the Edinburgh Review, we extract the following statement, to illustrate their good results:

"An epidemic nervous fever was raging in the two communes of the circle of Duisburg, Gartrop, and Gahlen. Its first and most virulent outbreak took place at Gartrop, a small, poor, secluded village, of scarcely 130 souls, without a doctor, without an apothecary in the neighborhood, while the clergyman was upon the point of leaving for another parish, and his successor had not yet been appointed. Four deaconesses, including the superior, Pastor Fliedner's wife, and a maid, hastened to this scene of wretchedness, and found from twenty to twenty-five fever patients in the most alarming condition; a mother and four children in one hovel, four other patients in another, and so on; all lying on foul straw, or on bedclothes that had not been washed for weeks, almost without food, utterly without help. Many had died already; the healthy had fled; the parish doctor lived four German leagues off, and could not come every day. The first care of the sisters, who could have found no lodging but for the vacancy of the parsonage, was to introduce cleanliness and ventilation into the narrow cabins of the peasants; they washed and cooked for the sick, they watched every night by turns at their bedside, and tended them with such success, that only four persons died after their arrival, and the rest were left convalescent after four weeks' stay. The same epidemic having broken out in the neighboring commune of Gahlen, in two families, of whom eight members lay ill at once, a single deaconess had the happiness, in three weeks, of leaving every patient restored to health, and of having pre

vented the further spread of the disease. What would not Dr. Southwood Smith or Mr. Chadwick give for a few dozen of such hard-working, zealous, intelligent ministers, in the field of sanitary reform ?" 1

We commend this matter earnestly to public attention. In what way it could be best carried into effect, we will not attempt to specify. We would, however, suggest that arrangements be made in the Massachusetts General Hospital, and in other similar institutions, to admit females of a proper character to be educated for these special objects.

Preliminary proceedings have taken place for erecting a new hospital in Boston, for the accommodation of the laboring classes and the poor. If such an institution should be established, this should be one of its purposes. It might be made a kind of normal school, of the highest character and usefulness, at which females and males might be educated and prepared to be intelligent nurses in and out of the city; and thus confer the double benefit of relieving its own patients and contributing to the relief of others. There are many females among us who wish for employment and support; and we know of no way better than this in which they might obtain their desires, and at the same time make themselves honored and eminently useful to others.2

XLV. WE RECOMMEND that persons be specially educated in sanitary science, as preventive advisers as well as curative advisers.

The great object of sanitary science is to teach people the causes of disease,-how to remove or avoid these causes,-how to prevent disease,-how to live without being sick,-how to increase the vital force,-how to avoid premature decay. And one of the most useful reforms which could be introduced into the present constitution of society would be, that the advice of the physician should be sought for and paid for while in health, to keep the patient well; and not, as now, while in sickness, to cure disease, which might in most cases have been avoided or prevented. And this practice, we understand, exists to some

1 Edinburgh Review, Vol. LXXXVII, for 1848, p. 442.

2 For further information, see article "Deaconesses and Protestant Sisterhoods," Edinburgh Review, Vol. LXXXVII, for 1848, pp. 430-451, and the works there reviewed.