avoidance than strict observance of the rules of modern hospital hygiene, with individualisation in all departments, and especially in the matter of diet, which should whenever possible be carried out through the instrumentality of wet-nurses. Since wet-nurses of the best quality are difficult to obtain in sufficient numbers, it is best that the hospital for infants should be associated with a lying-in hospital. _The Crèche._--In the families of the poor, the elder children have in most cases to work for their living, so that even these are not continuously available for the care of the younger children. This applies especially to those families whose members work away from home, and in places to which the younger children cannot be taken. When a peasant with his wife and his elder children works in the fields, it is possible to take even quite little children to the place of work and to keep an eye on them there; but when a workman with his wife and his elder children works in a shop, a factory, or a workshop, to take the younger children there is impossible. But young children must on no account be left without supervision, for this exposes them to all kinds of dangers--to burns and scalds, falling out of window, &c. Moreover, an infant-in-arms cannot be entrusted to the care of the older children, if only for the reason that this is injurious to the latter alike in body and in mind. They have, for example, to drag the baby about with them wherever they go, are kept away from school, &c. To board out an infant is, in the first place, costly, and, in the second place, separates the infant completely from its parents. In many cases it is only by the fact that she keeps her child with her, and becomes attached to it, that an unmarried mother is restrained from adopting an immoral life. Thus there is need of a place to which the children may be sent, either permanently or only during the hours in which the family are at work. Institutions for this purpose actually came into existence only as a sequel of the development of the factory system. They are known as crèches, and provide for the care, not of infants merely, but of children up to the age of three. The need for and value of such institutions is obvious. It is a real service to parents of the poorer classes, if not far from their dwelling or from their place of work there exists an institution at which, either gratuitously or for a nominal payment, their little children can be properly cared for. Early in the day the mother takes her infant to the crèche, during the midday pause goes there if necessary to suckle the child, and fetches it home in the evening.