12, 1619, at the request of the Franciscans in charge of the Cavite hospital. They asked, for immediate use, for "a dozen blankets, a dozen cupping-glasses, two syringes, two pairs of Castilian scissors, two clasp-knives, six lancets, two scarifiers; some wool for mattresses; two books, one entitled De Medicina, by the author Barrios, and the other by Dioscorides; four arrobas of Castilian wine; a barrel of raisins and almonds; and half an arroba of rosado sugar." [25] For regular annual supplies, they asked two hundred fanegas of cleaned rice, as hitherto they had had no amount allotted for the hospital; six hundred fowls, since they received only little more than two hundred a year from those assigned them by his Majesty in Balayán; and three hundred pesos from the royal treasury, to be spent for meat, sugar, flour, and eggs, drugs from China, clothing for the slaves and servants, and other needs of the hospital. All these were granted them, and paid regularly until the hospital was placed in charge of the Order of St. John of God (1642); "from that time there was a gradual diminution, to such an extent that, by another general conference of the treasury officials in 1657 the whole was reduced, so that by way of contribution [from the government] only two hundred pesos should be given, in the articles which should be required each year, and this [only] in the interval until other provision should be made." At the time when Maldonado wrote, all government aid had been taken away; moreover, in 1645 the brethren had been obliged to vacate the royal buildings, in which they had been conducting the Cavite hospital, and were incommodiously quartered in some poor shops of the Sangleys; but in October of that year the authorities granted them the use of an empty building belonging to his Majesty; it was constructed of nipa and bamboo, and had been occupied by some fishermen. The Cavite hospital was rebuilt four times by the brethren of St. John: "the first time, by the reverend father Fray Francisco de Magallanes, which lasted until the year 1682; the second, by the reverend father Fray Marcos de Mesa, a priest of the order, which lasted until the year 1699; the third, by the reverend father Fray Juan de Alarcòn, a priest, which lasted until the year 1728; and lastly, the one which is being built by the present superior, Fray Antonio de Arçe. There is no doubt that this will be established in so good order that it will be an improvement on the previous ones; and meanwhile a house has been made ready, with sufficient space for lodgings. This was given as a contribution by Captain Don Miguel Cordero; and in it are maintained eight beds, and the corresponding offices. The title of this hospital always was, and still is, that of St. Joseph. All its receipts in the year hardly reach two hundred and sixty pesos, a support so scanty that it is not necessary to emphasize the straitened manner in which the religious