Formerly the baths were the great haunts of clandestine prostitutes. It is known that in most eastern countries the bath is not only a sanitary necessity, but a common ally of sensuality. At Algiers, before the conquest, men and women are said to have bathed promiscuously, and frightful scenes of debauchery occurred daily. Under French rule this has been reformed. Men may not bathe from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M.; but Dr. Duchesne was led to believe that it was quite common for men to introduce women into the baths at night, with the connivance of the bath officials. Indeed, some of the latter appear to fill the same office to the Algerine bathers as the Roman bath servants did to the dissolute men of that day.[257] It now remains to speak of the Dispensary at Algiers. It was established, as has been stated, within a few days after the capture of the place. For nearly ten years it was a scandal to the faculty and the authorities. The wards were too small; there were not beds enough for the women; every thing was either deficient in quantity or objectionable in quality. In 1839, orders were given for the establishment of a proper and commodious Dispensary. Three old Moorish houses were hired and divided into wards. They contain at present thirteen wards, with beds for seventy-seven patients; a bath-room, containing six baths; a hall for the visits of prostitutes; and the necessary offices, etc. The staff of the Dispensary consists of a director, treasurer (_econome_), physician, apothecary, clerk, cook, assistant apothecary, porter, five laborers, and four police agents. All the washing is done in the establishment. The commissariat is on the amplest scale; meat, soup, vegetables of all kinds, rice, eggs, fruit, etc., being supplied in abundance to the patients.[258] Every morning at seven o'clock the women are visited by the physician, assisted by the apothecary. Those who are able to walk are examined in the _salle de visite_, the others in their beds. The average number of patients during the year appears to be from five hundred and fifty to six hundred. The average duration of the treatment is from twenty-four to thirty-four days. The cost to the Dispensary averages from one and a half to one and three quarters franc per day for each girl (about thirty or thirty-five cents).[259] The Dispensary physician reported to Dr. Duchesne that, so far as his observation went, syphilis was more severe on the sea-coast than in the interior; and in the months of September, October, November, and December, than at any other period of the year.[260]