Between Pluviose and Germinal Year the govern ment sent out to local administrations a series of circulars which, broadly speaking, reverted to the moral and economic criticisms that had been levelled, at the outset of the Revolution and even before, at the whole principle of hospitalization (the increased cost of an illness treated in a hospital, the lazy habits it induces, the financial distress and moral penury of a family deprived of a father or mother)