In the city of Nantes there is a general hospital, called the “Sanitat,” for the reception of the old and impotent; at present it contains about 800; it answers to an English workhouse; the inmates are lodged, fed, clothed, and are taken care of in every way: they are employed about trifling work, but the average gain by it does not exceed 20 fr. per annum for each. The average cost appears to be about 11 to 12 sous per day for each person. The establishment of St. Joseph’s, already alluded to, is, in fact, a sort of assistant to the Sanitat (although supported by private charity) for the 100 to 120 old people it contains. The Sanitat has a ward for dangerous as well as ordinary lunatics; is under the same board and direction as the Hôtel Dieu (the general hospital for the sick); but each is supported by its own funds, arising from bequests and donations from private persons, and from the city funds; yet if either hospital should require any assistance, the money wanted would be voted by the city treasury. The general council for the department votes about 1200 to 1250 fr. annually to the Sanitat from the departmental funds. _Sick._ Nantes has a general hospital (Hôtel Dieu) for the sick, containing 600 beds, 300 of which are reserved for the indigent of the city. The expense of this establishment is about a franc to 25 sous per day to each person. The military are received at 20 sous per man per day, which is paid by the government. It is supported by its own funds, arising from bequests and donations, and grants made from time to time by the city; is under the same board and direction as the Sanitat. If a poor person becomes sick in the country, he is either relieved by the curé of the parish or by some of the more wealthy neighbours, or he comes into Nantes and resides there for a week or ten days before he makes an application to the mayor to be admitted into the hospital; he is then sent there as an inhabitant of the city. The authorities in the country have not the right to send a patient to the Hôtel Dieu, yet a great number arrive at the hospital, sent by country practitioners, who have not the skill, or perhaps the leisure or inclination, to attend to them; and _they are always received_, if it be possible to take them in. The students at the hospital are ever ready to admit any difficult cases or fractures from the country, for their own improvement. There are also hospitals for the sick at the following places in the Loire Inférieure: Ancenis, for the town and commune; Chateaubriand, Paimbœuf, Savenay, and Clisson, for the towns only.