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Foundling hospitals.

the Emperor ’s privy purse, to provide food, clothing, airdnecessaries, and as new-born children required immediateattention, this was done without delay. This measure isthought to have been produced by the feeling manner inwhich Lactantius 3 described the situation of parents to thatEmperor . After these decrees, the children were nursedwith their parents. But, it seems, there were in Athens aswell as Rome , at a very early period, public receptacles forsuch children.

The Emperor Justinian , by a particular law, anno 529,declared foundlings to be free, denominating them brepho-trophium, from fiptpos, a child, and t pt<po, to educate, in hislaws respecting them.

The institution of public receptacles for the reception offoundlings in latter ages, has been chiefly owing to thecharitable donations of the piously disposed among privateindividuals.

The oldest establishment of this kind found in Germany ,is one at Triers , founded in the latter part of the sixthcentury. Mention of it occurs in the life of a legendary saint,called St. Goar . The children so exposed here, were placedin a marble conch before the church-door.

In the seventh century, there were similar establishmentsat Anjou, or Angers, in France , by St. Magnebodus, Bishopof that place, subsequently called St. Mainbeuf, who hadseveral houses built for their reception.

At Venice, there is also an institution for foundlings,called Della Pieta, established in 1380, by a Franciscan ,named Petruccio.

In the year 787, an arch-priest, named Datheu-s, erecteda foundling hospital, at Milan, at his own expense, pur-posely to stop child murder: in this Jiouse the infantsreceived all necessaries till they were seven years old, whenthey were put out to learn some handicraft employment.It is said, that it was usual for the mothers of such childrento strew salt between their clothes, which is said to intimatethat the infant had not been baptized, or, perhaps, that ithad not been purified by water.

There was established at Montpellier , in 1070, a religious, order of the Holy Ghost, by Oliver de la Trau, the members

8 This writer wrote a book, in which he painted in glowing colours the miseryand distress of poor parents ; and he sagely advised the people not to beget morechildren than they could maintain. It has been thought this advice did not pleasethe Emperor , who constantly wanted soldiers for his armies. So he seized the ad-vantage of the writer’s prudent advice to make the previous hUmaue and providen-tial regulation.