other hospitals in Europe and still kept much of that distinction it
had acquired in the great days of the Order. We must remember that
hospital organisation is a very recent science, and it would be unfair
to accuse the Knights of neglecting what had not yet been discovered.
Their Hospital was one of the most famous in Europe, and was used
by many from Sicily and Southern Italy as well as by the natives of
Malta. It was open to all who wished to use it, and the attendance of
patients from a distance proved that it supplied a need. The hospital,
which had generally over 400 invalids, was maintained at great cost to
the Order, and the regulations were drawn up with great care, though
they reveal an amazing ignorance of some fundamental laws of health.
Patients, for instance, who were members of the Order received meals
twice as large as other patients.


[Footnote 1: So called because they were Knights "by right" of noble
birth.]




CHAPTER IV


THE DECLINE

1565-1789.

The history of the Order of St. John after the siege of Malta in
1565 is a sad story of gradual and inevitable decay. The magnificent