It is interesting then to learn that these people of the {278} Middle Ages attempted to control the disease by erecting special hospitals for it, though unfortunately we are not in a position to know just how much was accomplished by these means. A congregation devoted to the special care of the disease had been organized, as we have said, early in the thirteenth century. At the end of this century this was given the full weight of his amplest approval by Pope Boniface VIII., who conferred on it the privilege of having priests among its members It will be remembered that Pope Boniface VIII. is said to have issued the bull which forbade the practice of dissection. That bull only regulated, as I have shown, the abuse which had sprung up of dismembering bodies and boiling them in order to be able to carry them to a distance for burial, which was in itself an excellent hygienic measure. His encouragement of the special religious order for the care of erysipelas must be set down to his credit as another sanitary benefit conferred on his generation. Many orders for the care of special needs of humanity were established during the thirteenth century. It is from this period that most of the religious habits worn by women originate. They used to be considered rather cumbersome for such a serious work as the nursing and care of the sick, but in recent years quite a different view has been taken. The covering of the head, for instance, and the shearing of the hair must have been of distinct value in preventing the communication of contagious diseases. There has been a curious assimilation in the last few years of the dress required to be worn by nurses in operating rooms to that worn by most of the religious communities. The head must be completely covered and the garments worn are of material that can be washed. {279} It will be recalled that the head-dress of religious being, as a rule, of white, on which the slightest speck shows, must be renewed frequently, and therefore must be kept in a condition of what is practically surgical cleanliness. While this was not at all the intention of those who adopted the particular style of head-dress worn by religious, yet their choice has proved, in what may well be considered a Providential way, an excellent protective for the patients on whom they waited, against certain dangers that would inevitably have been present, if their dress had been the ordinary one of the women of their class, during these many centuries of hospital nursing by religious women.