Christs love and service to all, to native born and to foreigners whom we encounter.
The Order of Saint John, more commonly called the Order of Malta, lived by its credo, “Our Lords, the Sick and the Poor.” The members of the Order make a promise upon investiture to serve, to the best of their ability, the sick and the poor, seeing in that goal the fulfillment in their time of the vision of their founder, Blessed Gerard.
As soon as the sick arrived in the hospital the porter had to receive and treat them like Lords. They were first brought to a priest, were they could confess their sins and receive as the first food, the “remedy of heavenly medicine”, i.e. Holy Communion. (This practise the Order had adopted from the Medical School of Salerno). Thereafter the sick were brought to the ward.
The Hospital was divided into eleven wards, which were obviously segregated according to the kind of sickness or injury of the patients. One ward had between 90 and 180 beds. Every ward was catered for by a special nursing team consisting of twelve nurses who were subject to a master. The women’s ward, mainly serving as a maternity ward, was situated in a separate building. Waldstein- Wartenberg (Vasallen Christi) assumes it may have been situated in the western wing of the hospital adjacent to the Maria Latina Maior Convent. The nurses there may originally have belonged to St. Magdalene’s Convent and later have become nuns of the Order of St. John.
The beds were big and covered with a bedspread and a linen sheet and feather cushions, so that the sick did neither “have to suffer from the roughness of the shaggy blankets nor through the hardness of the bed”. The private clothing of the sick was secured in sealed bags and they were provided with coats, furs and shoes, so that they neither had to suffer from the coldness of the marble floor nor that they would make themselves dirty. (cf. 2 HO 2).
The nurses had to prepare the beds, to straighten the blankets and to loosen the cushions. They had to be of assistance to the sick in every respect, to cover them, to set them up and to support them in walking. Their hands were washed and dried with a towel as often as necessary. When it was time for meals a “tablecloth” was put on top of their beds. Bread was distributed in special baskets. Every sick person got his own loaf of bread, to avoid giving an unequal share. To intensify the appetite of the sick, even the sort of bread was changed frequently, so that no aversion would develop.
The food for the sick was usually prepared in the monastery kitchen, where they cooked beef and mutton on Tuesdays and Thursdays, whereas Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays flummery was cooked. The members of the Order, knights, serving brothers and sisters served the food to the sick and got afterwards exactly the same food. The nurses had to watch that the food was well prepared and of good quality. When the quality of the food was poor or the sick did not have a good appetite, the nurses had to make a note of that fact and they had to see to it, that the patients got supplementary food like chicken, doves, partridges, lamb, bucks, at times also eggs or fish.
The nursing staff had to buy regularly pomegranates, pears, plums, chestnuts, almonds, grapes, dried figs and vegetables like lettuce, chicory, turnips, parsley, celery, cucumber, pumpkin, sweet melons etc. The treasury of the Order provided every ward with a budget of 20 to 30 Solidi per week for such additional food.
The doctors of the hospital prescribed which patients had to get a special diet. Generally forbidden for all patients were beans, lintels, sea- onions (?), moray eels, meat from mother pigs, every smoked meat, biltong or fat meat or innards.
Certain Brethren had the special task to wash the head and trim the beard of every patient. They had to wash the feet and clean the soles with a pumice stone every Monday and Thursday. They had to go through all the wards during food distribution and sprinkle everybody with water and apply incense. This was done by burning Thyrus wood, the so-called oriental tree of life. This general oriental custom was supposed to disinfect, but chased away the insects in any case.
“Because doctors have learnt a lot and have practical knowledge,” our reporter concludes, “the community of the Order entrusts the practical healing to the experience of science, that the sick might not be deprived from what is possible to man.” The number and knowledge of learned European doctors was not very considerable. Therefore Jews, Arabs, Armenians and Syrians were recruited as doctors.
The doctors visited the wards every morning and evening. They were accompanied by two nurses. One of them had to get the medicines, the other one had to hold the urinal (urine analysis played a central role in medical examination in those days) and write down the prescriptions.
The hospital employed also barbers…
Catholic Critique 