In all large houses there ought undoubtedly to be some provision for infectious illness. Of course I know that there are excellent fever hospitals, where one can be despatched at almost a moment’s notice, where an ambulance will deposit you, and where the best nursing and doctoring can be had at a most moderate outlay; and I, for one, highly applaud those courageous souls who telegraph for the proper conveyance, and depart, cutting themselves off from their homes, and at the same time from any chance of handing on their complaints elsewhere, with one fell swoop. But, much as I admire and applaud, nothing would, I fear, induce me to follow their laudable example. To know how to be ill is a fine art, and this accomplishment is quite thrown away on those who regard one merely as a ‘case,’ and talk about one as if one were a mere chattel left with them to repair, and return with the utmost speed. Moreover, I maintain always that one’s bodily health depends immensely on one’s surroundings, and that it would take double the time to get better in a hospital than one would in one’s own home, where one could see one’s friends out of the window and catch even a far-off whisper of what was happening, and see even from the greatest distance some of one’s old, accustomed sights. In an ordinary house, as at present arranged, it would be absolutely impossible to have even the smallest amount of infectious disease without running the greatest risk of handing it on to all the rest of the family; but there could be in most houses such arrangements made, were the builder a man of sense, that we could have a hospital room, a room sufficiently isolated to ensure immunity from infection, and yet near enough to do away with the hopeless feeling which seizes the ordinary mortal the moment he hears he has ‘something catching,’ and which enables him to understand what were the feelings of the lepers of old, who had to flee from the sight of their fellow-creatures, calling out aloud as they ran, ‘Unclean! unclean!’ Of course we ought not to feel angry with those who refuse to come near us; indeed, had I my way no one should ever enter a house where there was small-pox, scarlatina, or diphtheria; but we do resent it somehow, despite our own common sense and the knowledge that we should forbid the call our friends are so anxious not to make if they attempted to come near us; and there is no more miserable feeling than that which seizes us when we are told that we have a complaint in our midst which may prevent us from being on the same footing as the rest of mankind for several weary weeks, or may be months. But, before going into the matter of what we should do when infection is in our house, let me for a moment speak about the room we should all of us possess ready for an emergency and into which we could retire were we ill at all, not only ‘infectious’ but ill in such a way that we may require careful nursing, many fires, and absolute quiet and rest.