will be allowed daily to each patient. Visits, which will not be permitted without the permission of the medical superintendent, are, as a rule, to be limited in duration to a quarter of an hour. In urgent and special cases, however, the medical superintendent is empowered to increase the number of visitors to two, and to extend the duration of the visit.

Visitors are warned that they run great risk in entering the hospitals. They are advised not to go into the wards of the smallpox hospitals without having been properly revaccinated, and if they reside where the case visited occurred, are earnestly requested to urge the remainder of the occupiers of such house to call at once on the public vaccinator (whose address can be obtained from any of the parish officers) for the purpose of being vaccinated.

Visitors are further advised not to enter the wards of any of the hospitals when in a weak state of health, or in an exhausted condition, but to partake of a good meal before entering the hospitals. They will be required when in the wards to carefully avoid touching the patient, or exposing themselves to his breath, or to the emanations from his skin, and will not be permitted to sit on the bed or handle the bedclothes, but will be allowed to sit on a chair by the bedside at some little distance from the patient.

Visitors will also be required to wear a wrapper (to be provided by the Board) to cover their dress when in the wards, and to wash their hands and face with carbolic soap and water before leaving the hospital, or to use such other mode of disinfection as may be directed by the medical superintendent.

Visitors are strongly urged not to enter any omnibus, tram car, or other public conveyance, immediately after leaving the hospital.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE PRINCIPLES OF DIET.

FOODS are scientifically divided into :-1. Water. 2. Meaty or albuminous. 3. Starches or Carbohydrates. 4. Fats. 5. Mineral

matters.

(426) Water in Food.

This varies much; some succulent fruits contain quite 99 per cent. of water; green vegetables from 60 to 90 per cent. Meat about 75 per cent. Artificial baked products such as rusks contain the least water.

Hence it is not absolutely necessary to replace the fluids of the body by water per se, there are at the present time in England a few persons who affirm that they drink neither tea, coffee, soup, fermented nor unfermented liquids. They obtain the necessary water entirely from fruits such as oranges and vegetables, such as water melons, and the like.

The amount of water, taken as water or in the shape of liquids, such as tea, coffee, soup, or beer, varies much according to custom, to climate, and to exercise; in our own climate two and a half pints daily may be put as a sufficient quantity; the water in the solid food will amount to about two pints, making a daily total of four and a half pints.

Water is entitled to the name of food, for it does not act merely as a dilutent of the secretions, or a solvent assisting excretion, but it helps to build new tissue and to repair old. When deprived of food and water it is the latter want that is felt the soonest; if water