The city of Rome contains 150,000 people; and nourishes, lodges, and takes care of more than 4000 poor people, infirm people, old people, orphans, foundlings, etc., without reckoning assistance given at their own houses to those who require it. There are different hospitals too: the Trinity of the Pelerins, the deaf and dumb asylum, the madhouse, etc. Nearly 22,000 necessitous are relieved every year. The hospital of St. Roch gives admittance to women with child without asking their name or condition, without inquiring whether or not they are married. Women in a good position, who wish to conceal the fruits of a culpable amour, can receive every attention by paying 3 scudi (or about 4s. 6d. of our money) a month. The child is taken to the Pia casa di Santo-Spirito. Both men and women when discharged from hospital are so weak that they cannot pursue their avocations. When this is the case they are received into the refuge for convalescents, called the Trinity of the Pelerins, that we have had occasion to refer to before. This hospital has received six hundred thousand inmates since the year 1625.
As things are at present constituted at Rome there is little more to be said respecting it, but we cannot conclude without expressing our admiration of the numerous charitable establishments that one finds there. Every infirmity is cared for with no sparing hand, and the defenceless and the destitute are not deserted by the state and the charity of private individuals.
Turin.
Turin is as important in every way as Rome, and deserves considerable attention. Its population, if we include the floating inhabitants, is more than 150,000.
Almost up to the present day, that is, until very lately, the supervision of the police was very imperfectly exercised, and the propagation of disease was the inevitable result. In 1855, M. Ratazzi, Minister of the Interior, wishing to establish a better organization, asked Doctor Sperino, well known in the world of letters for his works upon syphilis, to conceive a project bearing upon this important department of the public health.
These new ordonnances established a reform not only in Turin, but throughout the kingdom.
The public women who were visited before 1856 were at Turin 180; since a scrupulous supervision has been established, the number is increased to 750. When we compare these figures, we shall see how much this department of the sanitary police was neglected, and how necessary and efficacious the measures suggested by M. Sperino were. This is proved in a better way still by the notable diminution of disease among the garrison. When the surveillance of prostitution is badly exercised the disastrous results can escape the notice of the government, but the registry kept of the soldiers who go into hospital is an index always to be relied on.
After a long time, a hospital specially devoted to venereal diseases has sprung up in Turin, called the Syphilocome. Tainted women are here treated gratuitously. They also receive women sent from the provinces. Married women not prostitutes, who are nursing their children, are received here in chambers set apart for them. In 1856 the number of admissions was 1661. A similar institution is about to be erected at Genoa.
Prostitutes are now inscribed on the registers, and they must renew their licence annually. The cost of the licence in the first instance, and the cost of renewal, is
| f. | c. | ||
| For prostitutes belonging to tolerated houses | 2 | 0 | |
| For free women of the 1st class | 2 | 0 | |
| „ | 2nd „ | 1 | 0 |
| „ | 3rd „ | 0 | 60 |