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60
Hospital Accommodation for Measles and Whooping-cough.—The
Metropolitan Asylums Board, at their meeting on 16 of July, adopted
recommendations in regard to a change of their hospital system, brought
forward as the result of a report made by Sir Arthur Downes for the
Local Government Board. The matter under consideration was whether
the large margin of unoccupied beds which frequently exists in the fever
and small-pox hospitals could be beneficially used for providing for
additional classes of patients, and for meeting the growing demands on
other departments, such as those for children and imbeciles. It was
decided to arrange for the reception, tentatively, of measles and other
approved diseases in their fever hospitals, provided the Local Government
Board can empower them to admit selected cases from the poorer
classes for which no accommodation is now available. This last part of
the recommendation was due to the report of Dr. Cuff, the Medical
Officer for General Purposes, who states that there is adequate accommodation
in the Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmaries for pau-per cases
of measles; what is wanted is accommodation for cases from the poorer
classes, not necessarily paupers. As to the feasibility of treating measles
and whooping-cough in the same hospital with other infectious fevers,
Dr. Cuff states that in his opinion this can be done without any risk of
interchange of infection between the different wards. He reports : " The
danger to diphtheria patients is at least as great now from scarlet fever
as it would be from measles or whooping-cough. Such, at any rate, is
the experience of those fever hospitals in the provinces and in Scotland
which admit all these diseases. Dr. Ker, of the City Hospital, Edinburgh,
where over 1,000 cases of Measles were treated last year, writes :
' Measles is never carried by the staff' Dr. Bundle, of the City Hospital,
Liverpool, says: 'We have had under treatment here probably a
thousand cases of measles, and I have never known the disease to be
carried to other wards. I am convinced that measles is almost entirely
a personal infection, and that the third factor does not exist.' With
whooping-cough there is no risk at all." The balance of evidence is that
the hospital treatment of measles and whooping-cough resulted in a
saving of life among the poor.
The arrangement which has been come to is that suitable cases are
sent to the Board's Hospitals through the Believing Officer.
Schools and Infectious Disease.
School teachers are required to notify the Medical Officer of Health
when they exclude children on account of infectious disease. The
following list shows how far this was carried out and the nature of the
cases notified:—