By careful accounting (and only in that way) can be ascertained the average amount of supplies that should be required in caring for a given number of patients. If this average amount is generally known or understood by heads of departments, internes, and nurses, it will be found that more care will be exercised to keep at least within ordinary limits. Very frequently the necessity for economy is never brought to the attention of the workers. Heads of departments too often seem in no way to be concerned with the cost or consumption of supplies. When this condition exists somebody is to blame. The superintendent, if he is the head of the hospital, as his official title would indicate, holds more of the power of checking waste in his hands than any other one or two persons. If he does not keep his financial eye on the expenditures of different departments, if he does not give time and study to the question of how to keep current expenses down to the minimum and at the same time do good work, if he does not, up to a certain point, regulate the purchase and distribution of the enormous quantities of supplies needed in the hospital, and insist on his colleagues in charge of departments doing the same thing, then waste is inevitable. If the father of a family simply pays bills for supplies without having a voice in controlling the consumption or use of those supplies he need not wonder if he finds the figures on accounts creeping higher and higher each month, and that is probably what is occurring in some hospitals, where the expense is excessive as compared with other institutions doing the same amount and same class of work. That economy and efficiency are quite compatible can be easily shown by actual results in hospitals that have never adopted the plan of running the institution on a deficit, that either have to pay their bills promptly or close their doors. [Sidenote: Dietetic Department] No doubt the dietetic department of the hospital can furnish more concrete illustrations of waste than any other. Some of this so-called waste is legitimate and inevitable; much of it represents material that should not be saved, that has been rendered unfit for use by handling, but there is no question that a large proportion of this waste of food comes from a failure to fit the amount and character of the food served to the needs and tastes of the individual patient. A wise discrimination on the part of the one who serves the food would prevent much of it. Another important cause of waste comes from imperfect preparation of the food. Food cooked in bulk, and with no bond of connection between the one who cooks and those who consume the cooked product, is almost sure to be handled carelessly, overdone or under-done or unpalatable. Food that is properly cooked and tastefully served, so that it will appeal to the eye and to the palate as well, is much less likely to be wasted or rendered unfit for use by handling.