ly interesting to find a striking anticipation of this very
modern rule in the customs of these old-time hospitals. As a result of
the attitude of supreme good will toward patients, there is an
injunction in many hospital statutes, that whatever the patient may
desire, if it can be obtained and is not bad for him, shall be given
to him until he is restored to health. The Knights Hospitalers of St.
John of Jerusalem followed the injunction so carefully and endeavored
to satisfy even whims of their patients that might seem unreasonable
to such an extent, that their conduct in the matter became proverbial
and gave rise to at least one pretty legend, the hero of which is no
less a personage than the famous Eastern Sultan of the later Crusade
period.

"Saladin desiring to prove for himself this reputed indulgence of
the knights to their patients, disguised himself as a pilgrim and
was received among the sick in the hospital in Jerusalem. He refused
all food, declaring that there was only one thing that he fancied,
and that he knew they would not give him. On being pressed, he
confessed that it was one of the feet of the horse of the Grand
Master. The latter, on being acquainted with this fact, ordered that
the noble animal should be killed and the sick stranger's desire
satisfied. Saladin at this point, thinking the experiment had gone
far enough, declared himself taken with a repugnance to it, so the
animal was spared."

Virchow studied very faithfully the management of these medieval
hospitals, and was evidently quite impressed with the success with
which difficulties had been {262} met and overcome. None knew better
than he all the difficulties there were in hospital management, for
during nearly fifty years he had been identified with many hospitals,
from city charity institutions to the various kinds needed for war and
those erected in connection with universities for teaching purposes.
He had very little patience with religious formulas, and was indeed a
typical agnostic. Notwithstanding this, he has been perfectly frank in
confessing how much is accomplished by the religious management of the
hospitals, and even did not hesitate to declare that if hospitals for
the poor particularly, are to be successfully managed, there must be a
change in the view-point of those who take up the work of hospital
nursing, and the attendants must come from better social classes than
is at present the custom. (Th