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infectious diseases, accommodation for the nurses, and a kitchen to each ward. These are things that would certainly be improvements. 4403. Let me call your attention to this resolution which you proposed in regard to what you now call the most healthy hospital in the world. [Resolution ([noted.] —That exactly meets my views at present, and is what my views have been all through. 440.4. Now, as to the stuffiness of the wards. We have heard that both the present and past house surgeons have frequently called attention to this matter ?—I have not smelt any stuffiness ; and I may say that in hospitals, even the newest hospitals, you cannot help finding stuffiness at some time or another. 4405. We have had Dr. De Benzi, Dr. De Lautour, Dr. Truby King, and Dr. Gloss, all strangers, going into the Hospital and declaring that the state of the wards was most indecent. What do you say to that ? —That shows the weakness of your case, when your witnesses have to be prompted by the prime mover in this matter. 4406. Now, you have told us that you have always found plenty of fresh air in the Hospital; yet these strangers, who have called in to see the Hospital, tell me they have found the wards exceedingly stuffy ?—How can you place the opinions of the men you have mentioned, who havepaid only chance visits to the Hospital, against the opinions of men who are there every day. I have left the front doors of the Hospital open, also the side doors leading into the grounds, and have found a delicious breeze flowing into the cul de sac, and the result is that the wards are immediately flushed, so to speak, with a deliciously fresh air. I have myself taken medical men through the wards of the Hospital, and they have been charmed with them. 4407. How do you explain that with the evidence we have had given here, of medical men who are strangers, and who have declared that they found the wards very stuffy when they visited the Hospital? — I have nothing to do with other men's opinions: I am simply giving you my own. 4408. Do you agree with them ?—Certainly not; I have quite enough to do to answer for myself. As I told you just now, I have taken medicaj men round the Hospital, and shown them through the building, and they have all been charmed with our Hospital; and I have no doubt if they were put into the witness-box they woiild tell you the same. It seems to me that the whole thing depends on a little judicious prompting. 4409. Then, you are of opinion that it depends on which side prompts it, and that the medical evidence that I have called your attention to is not worth much ?—-Well, the evidence on your side is not worth very much. 4410. You rhink they did not have a fair opportunity of judging?—l do not think those gentlemen had. 4411. I suppose you think they do not know anything about it?—l think they do not know much. 4412. Dr. Colquhoun told us that the temperature in which the patients live in these wards is exceedingly stuffy, and that it is his opinion that it is certainly unhealthy. Do you agree with that?— Well, the wards may be theoretically unhealthy, but it does not do the patients any great harm. I have given you my opinion for what it is worth. 4413. And you say you have seen nothing extraordinary arising there, and that you do not think any of the defects I have pointed out do any harm ?—No. 4414. Yet we have found in eighteen months that ten cases of erysipelas occurred in the Hospital. Is that an unhealthy state of affairs?—lt might be. 5415. 1 want a more definite opinion. Do you not know that these cases broke out in the Hospital ?—I do not know whether they did or not, but they could have happened in a perfectly healthy hospital. Of course, doctors do not agree as to what is erysipelas. What one man calls erysipelas another calls erythemia. 4416. Do you recollect the case of M— — ? How do you account for erysipelas in his case ? —He had an immense abscess in the calf of the leg, which had left a scabbed cicatrix, which in my opinion was the nucleus of the erysipelas. 4417. Did it develop of itself? —Yes. Did you think it worth while to ask any of your witnesses if they had cases of erysipelas in their private practice ? I may mention that every case of erysipelas I have had in my practice out of doors occurred from exposure to cold in a depressed condition of the system, and that the last two cases were among the well-off and wealthy people. Now, if I find erysipelas under those circumstances, outside the Hospital, is it at all strange to rind erysipelas inside it? They breathe the same air inside the Hospital or outside of it. 4418. How many patients do you say you have during the course of twelve months?—l have no idea. 4419. Would it be one hundred? —Far more than that. 4419 a. Five hundred ?—About that. 4420. More than that ? —I have had as many as one thousand cases in a year. 4421. Take last year. How many cases of erysipelas did you find?-—I have had two cases anyhow. I may have had more, but I cannot remember the exact number. I have seen half-a-dozen cases within a limited area. 4422. Dr. Maunsell has told us that in his twelve years' experience he never remembers one case of erysipelas. He is mistaken ; it cannot be true. 4423. Yet we find that in the Dunedin Hospital, which in your opinion is a sanatorium, four times as many cases of erysipelas occurring as were to be found in outside practice ? —Patients in a hospital are particularly susceptible to erysipelas, not from anything which may exist in the hospital, but from their depressed condition. ■ 4424. How does the erysipelas get in ?—lt comes in the air. 4425. Must there not be germs? —Now you* are talking of things you know nothing about.