more nearly
associated with religion, virtue, and humanity, than the contrary
practice--and we have the sanction of the wisest and the best of men--of
the whole Christian world, for several hundred years after the
commencement of the Christian era."

ORPHAN ASYLUM OF ALBANY.

I class this as a community, because it is properly so, and because I
cannot conveniently class it otherwise. The facts which are to be
related are too valuable to be lost. They were first published, I
believe, in the Northampton Courier; and subsequently in the Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal, and in the Moral Reformer. In the present
case, the account is greatly abridged.

The Orphan Asylum of Albany was established about the close of the year
1829, or the beginning of the year 1830. Shortly after its
establishment, it contained seventy children, and subsequently many
more. The average number, from its commencement to August 1836, was
eighty.

For the first three years, the diet of the inmates consisted of fine
bread, rice, Indian puddings, potatoes, and other vegetables and fruits,
with milk; to which was added flesh or flesh-soup once a day.
Considerable attention was also paid to bathing and cleanliness, and to
clothing, air, and exercise. Bathing, however, was performed in a
perfect manner, only once in three weeks. As many of them were received
in poor health, not a few continued sickly.

In the fall of 1833, the diet and regimen of the inmates were materially
changed. Daily ablution of the whole body, in the use of the cold shower
or sponge bath--or, in cases of special disease, the tepid bath was one
of the first steps taken; then the fine bread was laid aside for that
made of unbolted wheat meal; and soon after flesh and flesh-soups were
wholly banished; and thus they continued to advance, till, in about
three months more, they had come fully upon the vegetable system, and
had adopted reformed habits in regard to sleeping, air, clothing,
exercise, etc. On this course, then, they continued to August, 1836,
and, for aught I know, to the present time. The results were as follows:

During the first three years, or while the old system was followed, from
four to six children were continually on the sick list, and sometimes
more; and one or two assistant nurses were necessary. A physician was
needed once, twice, or three times a week, uniformly; and deaths were
frequent. During this whole period there were between thirty and forty