The Venetian occupants of the monastery of Pantocrator

The Venetian occupants of the monastery of Pantocrator, as an example, may study a lot from the admirable organisation of the hospital maintained by that Home for the advantage of the poor. The hospital contained fifty beds, of which ten shaped a ward for surgical circumstances, eight award for acute illnesses, ten for peculiar maladies, and twelve award for ladies. A fifth ward contained ten beds for the reception of candidates for admittance into the opposite wards of the hospital, till the physicians ought to determine upon the gravity of the circumstances. Every ward was in command of two medical doctors, three medical assistants, and 4 servitors.

To the ladies’s ward had been hooked up a lady- doctor, six assistant lady-surgeons, and two feminine nurses. All sufferers had been handled gratuitously. Upon arrival on the hospital a affected person’s garments had been laid apart, and changed by a white costume supplied by the establishment. There was a liberal allowance of bread, beans, onions, olive oil, and wine, for all capable of partake of such meals, whereas once in a while items of cash had been distributed. The beds had been stored clear, and a house-doctor went by means of the wards day-after-day to inquire of the sufferers, whether or not they had been glad with their remedy, and to look at their eating regimen Along with the hospital, the monastery maintained, on the identical liberal scale, a Residence for Previous Males, accommodating twenty-four individuals.

The inhabitants of Constantinople had been sinners, although not sinners above all males, as they’re typically represented. However of their hospitals, orphanages, asylums for the aged, free caravanseries, asylums for lepers, and different establishments “to present relaxation to these whom hassle had distressed,” which humanised the town with compassion, they had been distinguished additionally for that charity which covereth a mess of sins.

The Church buildings of St. Mary Pammacaristos

The Church buildings of St. Mary Pammacaristos (Fethiyeh Djamissi), the Church of S. Theodosia (Gul Djamissi), and parts of S. Saviour-in-the- Chora, carry us to the occasions of the Palseologi, the dynasty that occupied the throne of Constantinople over the past 100 and ninety years of the town’s historical past as New Rome. It’s the interval of the lengthy wrestle with the Ottoman Turks, and the end result of the battle between the Mohammedan world and Christendom which had stuffed greater than eight centuries with its hate and din; when the signal during which the Empire had conquered yielded to the signal of the crescent, and the benediction of the prophet of Islam—“Whoso taketh the town of Constantine, his sins are forgiven”—discovered at size a person upon whose head it may settle. It’s a unhappy interval of Byzantine historical past; but one noble thought, a minimum of, appealed to its thoughts—the Reunion of Christendom — which, if realised, would have modified the historical past of Europe. However it was to not be.