Patients have certain communications to make to their friends on the days set aside for public admission which are not intended for the hearing of strangers; and, when the hour of death is nigh, it is but natural they should be allowed to hold converse with their relatives without any witnesses. Even this semi-retirement is denied them under the present system; whereas the plan proposed would secure the preservation of family secrets. It will, perhaps, be alleged that the patient would thus be isolated from his fellow-sufferers. By no means. As above remarked, the cells would be open down the central passage, and each patient could see his opposite neighbor. This, added to the going to and fro of _infirmiers_, doctors, sisters, and regular visitors, affords quite enough excitement for an invalid. Neither is this an innovation. It was once tried at Munich, and, if but imperfectly carried out, no hygienic objection was made to it. We find this organization existed in one of the oldest hospitals in France, the Tonnerre Hôtel Dieu--a monument described by M. Viollet Leduc in his work, _Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture Française du XI. au XVI. Siècle_. The learned writer says this institution can bear comparison with the most boasted foundations of the present day. In the archives of the Tonnerre Hospital we find the following document. I quote because it forcibly reminds us of S. Vincent de Paul: "The poor are provided for in this institution, and the convalescent are kept a whole week after their cure, when they are sent away with a coat, a shirt, and a pair of boots. A chapel will be added having four altars. The brothers and sisters in charge are twenty in number; they are bound to provide food and drink for the wayfarer; to board pilgrims and strangers, clothe the poor, visit the sick, comfort the prisoner, and bury the dead. The brothers and sisters will not take their meals before the sick have been attended to...." On closing this paragraph, a question arises whether people in the dark, middle ages were not more solicitous for the poor than in the XVIIIth century. A glance down a report written for Louis XV. on the Hôtel Dieu will corroborate this. We shall doubtless hear it objected that partitions between hospital beds will inconvenience the doctors and medical students; that it will be difficult to approach patients; and young physicians will declare they cannot follow the _chef's_ instructions near enough. It will be said, further, that, when any operation is going on, the limited space allowed by a narrow cell must exclude the use of surgical instruments.