As organized at present, the Bicêtre contains three thousand one hundred
and fifty-three beds, and the Salpêtrière three thousand eight hundred
and eleven. The latter includes also a clinic for nervous diseases, with
consultations for out-door patients, the former clinic of Doctor
Charcot, and one service of electro-therapeutics, for both in-door and
out-door patients, which attracts many from outside. There is a very
curious medical museum; and the institution itself claims to be one of
the great centres of scientific research.
An interesting feature of the general administration of the Parisian
hospitals is the arrangement made by the _internes_, the graduates in
medicine and pharmacy in the in-door service of the institution, for
providing themselves with the necessary meals. These young men are paid
by the Assistance Publique the modest sums of from six hundred to a
thousand francs a year, from the first to their fourth year, out of
which they have to provide for themselves until they are _de
permanence_. They therefore make provisions for dining in common, and
their _salles de garde_ are cheerful and very informal gathering-places,
gay and hospitable, liberally adorned with inscriptions, engravings, and
paintings, permeated with the souvenirs and traditions of the
institution to which they are attached. At the Hôtel-Dieu, owing to the
size of the hospital and the number of clinics, the number of _internes_
and _externes_, _bénévoles_ and _provisoires_, and their friends, is so
great that the social character of the salle de garde naturally suffers;
each one dines hastily, occupies himself only with his invited guest,
and, after coffee, if his duties do not claim him, goes off in search of
some shady promenade, which the cloisters of the Hôtel-Dieu--unlike the
green courts of the Bicêtre and Salpêtrière--do not offer him.
Consequently, the gastronomical qualities of the repast assume a
considerable importance, and the duties of the _économe_ become
proportionally heavy.
[Illustration: DEPARTURE FROM THE "DÉPÔT" FOR THE HOUSE OF DETENTION--LA
PETITE-ROQUETTE. After a drawing by E. Vavasseur.]
This very useful official is a comrade endowed with the necessary
domestic and executive qualities, who assumes the onerous task of
directing this refectory. He must be a gourmet, of course, this is
indispensable; he must have imagination and experience in order to
prepare and to suitably vary the _ménus_; he must be economical,
orderly, judicial, and discriminating, so as to know which rebellions
and protests are to be heeded and which ignored, and to preserve
suitable relations with his _cantinière_. The interne on duty alone has
a right to have his repasts served by the Assistance Publique; as these
are constantly changed, the administration furnishes the equivalent of
what it owes in provisions, which are turned into the common stock. It
also furnishes the necessary utensils and cooking apparatus. The
cantinière must have given proof of her worth either as a cook in the
hospital or as a _cordon bleu_ in the city. She must also be provided
with a husband or some other connection capable of serving at table. At
the end of each repast, the économe marks on a list of his subscribers a
cross opposite the name of each participant, or two or more crosses if
he has had guests. At the end of the month, the permanent expenses are
added up, wages, etc., which sum is divided into as many parts as there
are internes. This is a fixed amount, the proportionate share of which
must be paid whether the subscriber has dined only once, or not at all.
Then the cost of the number of meals actually consumed is added up and
divided by the number of crosses. This cost of each meal varies greatly
in the different hospitals, those outside the city walls being able to
provide more cheaply. Thus, in 1893, it was one franc seventy-five
centimes at the Hôpital de la Charité, and only eighty-five centimes at
the Bicêtre. The presence of the monthly fixed charges which have to be
met brings about the apparent anomaly that the more meals the young
doctor eats in his messroom the less proportionally do they cost him.
As a recompense for his labors in the general service, the économe has
the privilege of presiding in the centre of the table, of carving, and
of sitting as umpire on all the _manifestations_. When any one of the
habitués of the common table has passed an examination, assisted his
master in some difficult operation, or otherwise had a chance to
distinguish himself, it is in order for him to celebrate the great
occasion by discreet libations in which his friends may share. As it
sometimes happens that these fortunate ones--entirely through timidity
and modesty--omit to mention their professional successes at the
hospitable board, the custom has arisen of proclaiming their virtues for
them and thus causing them to "manifest" themselves. "But, as the
examinations are rare, and the flasks of Chartreuse small, some one is
called upon to manifest, on the slightest provocation, for the
promulgation of an unseasonable political opinion, for a bad pun, for
anything you please. The _manifesteur_ is made aware of the fate which
menaces him by a clinking of bottles and plates, by a hammering with the
backs of knives;--however, his condemnation is not definite until the
économe has pronounced judgment upon it. He is careful to see that it is
not always the same culprit who is executed."
[Illustration: PRESIDENT M. DELAGORGNE, OF THE COURT WHICH SENTENCED M.
ZOLA TO IMPRISONMENT AND FINE ON ACCOUNT OF HIS DEFENCE OF DREYFUS.