Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Hospitals, Disease, War, Politics, Morality

    Begins by upholding the 'salutary' experience of walking through hospitals, an act that 'induces pity and compassion' and refinement of the mind. Wonders whether kings and emperors would have their minds refined by the sight of suffering, and urges that they should walk through hospitals where they might rethink their plans for war. Draws attention to the villages of Germany, where 'thousands of creatures' lie slain from sword and gun wounds, and wonders whether the hearts of kings and emperors would be softened by this harrowing sight. This is a response to the bloody 'Seven Weeks' War' in which the Prussian army attacked Austria and the German states who were hostile to the attempt of Otto E L von Bismarck (Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen) to create a new German confederation.