II
Hospitals
The province, considering the great service which is performed for our Lord in the cure of the sick, and that its evangelical ministers ought to attend to the spiritual necessities of all and to the corporal needs of the poor, began to establish some hospitals in this new [field of the] conversion, entrusting so apostolic a ministry to a lay-brother of proved virtue called Fray Juan Clemente. That religious, with singular charity, collected some alms among the Spaniards, and began to treat the poor Spaniards in a wretched nipa house. Since the order of our father St. Francis may not hold property and have the management of money, therefore that hospital, like the others founded by the province, was placed under the royal protection. God took to himself a Spaniard who had one of the best cattle-ranches in this kingdom. That Spaniard made confession and deposited his will with father Fray Agustín de Tordesillas, one of the first founders of this province. Father Fray Agustín counseled that Spaniard to leave his ranch to the royal hospital of the Spaniards, since he had no children and the hospital was so poor. The Spaniard did so, so that the poor had thereby the milk necessary for their sicknesses, for milk is, as a general rule, the delicacy that is prescribed to the sick in this kingdom.
This province founded another hospital, in the port of Cavite, for the relief and cure of the seamen in that port and of the natives who live there. For its support and comfort they founded another ranch, likewise of the larger cattle, the land on which that ranch was established being given by some Spaniards and some natives, by the advice and efforts of the religious.
The same Fray Juan Clemente founded another hospital outside the walls of the city of Manila, which is called “the hospital of the natives;” for there the Indian natives who go thither because they have not the wherewithal to cure themselves are treated—and they are many. The same religious founded another ranch for its support, commencing it with some calves which he begged as an alms. In the same manner was founded also the hospital of Los Baños, with two other ranches. In the city of [Nueva] Cáçeres, the religious have founded another hospital, with another large ranch.
Within the city of Manila, the brotherhood of the Santa Misericordia built another hospital, where poor negro slaves are treated, through their alms. Most of the negroes would doubtless die miserably if the Santa Misericordia did not piously aid them in so great need. The Misericordia entrusted their hospital to our religious, who administered it most willingly, as it was for poor creatures so orphaned and destitute.
Besides these hospitals, there is the infirmary at the principal convent of Manila, and another infirmary in the village of Pila, in the province of Laguna de Bay of Tagalos. The province of Camarines has two more infirmaries—one in the village of Camarines, and the other (which is the chief one) in the city of [Nueva] Cáçeres, the capital of that province. The religious of the order are treated in those infirmaries, as well as the religious of other orders, secular priests, and Spaniards, and not a few natives who gather there from various villages—the priests being admitted to the same infirmaries of the convents, and the laymen being accommodated in the private houses of the villages.
The service, past and present, rendered to the two Majesties and to their poor vassals by the religious in those hospitals and infirmaries is of no little importance. But since the infernal enemy of the poor does not sleep, he also found a plan to sow his seeds of discord and to entangle everything, as is his wont. When Don Sebastian governed this kingdom, he took the royal hospital away from the order, and commanded it to be administered by layman and by a secular priest. He also took away the hospital of Cavite, and gave it to the religious of San Juan Bautista,[1] whom he brought from México for that purpose. His Majesty (may God preserve him), having been [correctly] informed, has ordered by his royal decree that the royal hospital of Manila be returned to the order. In regard to the hospital of Cavite, the order has not informed his Majesty of anything. Without doubt the loss of the royal hospital of Manila is felt by the order, for it contained as superior and minister one of the father definitors, with another priest as associate (one of those who gave most satisfaction), and the father vicar of the nuns, with an associate. Besides these, there were four priests who were always chosen from among the best of the province. It was necessary that they be of the best, as they were in the sight of all the community. There were also four or six lay religious, chosen for the same reasons from the very best. The head-nurse was there and was chosen by the governor. The steward, then as now, gave the religious what was needful for the cure and comfort of the sick; and the religious gave out what was delivered to them by the stewards, without having the management of any property or money. And as that hospital always had a surgeon and an apothecary (both Spaniards), the religious who served and ministered to them learned medicine by experience, and by means of the books which they read in the Romance [i.e., Castilian] tongue. By that means the other hospitals and infirmaries were furnished with nurses and physicians so competent that the best people of Manila preferred to be treated by them rather than by the Spanish physician. Since the province has lost that hospital, the seminary of its nurses is also lacking; and consequently only three or four of the old nurses have remained, who now take care of the other hospitals. But when they die, the province will sustain the hospitals with difficulty for lack of nurse and school where they can be trained.
[Section iii treats of the conversion of China, and section iv of the empire of Japan. Both have been treated sufficiently in preceding volumes. The former mentions the disputes of the Franciscans and Dominicans with the Jesuits over the Chinese rites. The latter narrates the early beginnings of the Franciscans’ missions in Japan (where they had ten convents and seven hospitals), their successes, and subsequent persecutions.]