Helyot, in his _"Les Ordres Monastiques."_ describes the beautiful drug rooms in these hospitals, where the various medicaments were prepared, many of them being grown in the hospital garden, and also the other rooms of the hospital, the quarters for the nursing sisters, and says that "the patients were nursed with all the skill and goodness of heart and refinement that might be expected from the conditions surrounding them." He appreciated very well that proper quarters for patients and nurses make strongly for such nursing conditions as are sure to be of the greatest possible help in the care of diseases. A special nursing order of Beguines was formed at this time, and as these religious women were recruited as a rule from the better classes of the population, bringing in with them such dowries as would enable them to support {199} themselves in whatever work they might undertake, it is easy to understand on what a high plane the nursing must have been. It would remind one of the conditions in the early days of the trained nurse in modern times, when so many of the applicants for nursing positions were prepared by their family life at home for devotion to a liberal profession rather than merely the taking up of an occupation necessary for livelihood. How their efforts were appreciated by patients will be very well understood from what may still be seen at the hospital of St. Jean at Bruges. The great painter Memling was for a time a patient in the hospital. He felt that he owed his life to the good sisters who had done so much for him, and so he painted a great altar-piece for them and decorated the famous Shrine of St. Ursula. The pictures were painted just about the time that Columbus discovered America. They are among the most beautiful examples of religious painting ever made. The decorations of the shrine particularly are among the world's great works of art. They are almost miniatures and contain large numbers of faces, beautifully executed, but every detail has been worked out by the great painter, evidently as a labor of love. The texture of some of the garments as he reproduces them has proved a source of wonder to artist visitors ever since. Many thousands of visitors find their way to the hospital every year, and even the small sum of money (twenty cents) which is charged for admission to see them constitutes in the annual aggregate an income of thousands of dollars. The hospital, which is very spacious and has large gardens with the canal winding alongside of it, is enabled to carry on its work much better as a consequence of this notable addition to its revenues due to the gratitude of a patient of over four hundred years ago.