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employment of revaccination in adults, a virgin soil, so to
speak, still exists for this disease to spring up and thrive.
Hence we must be prepared to meet the outbreaks of Small
Pox which consequently will continue to occur. We need
a scheme which will expand to an unlimited extent, when
occasion requires, and yet be no burden when the necessity
for it has passed. The ordinary Hospital, with its buildings,
stores, staff, &c., will not, except at great expense and loss,
meet the case. The difficulty of procuring a site, isolated
and yet reachable, of maintenance during the latency of
the disease, of transit from distances, &c., all militate
against the ordinary hospital system. Perhaps the cottage
hospital in scattered districts, by being procurable at short
notice, by diminishing the risk of conveyance, by confining
the disease to each parish, and probably by not mixing
different types of the epidemic under one roof, presents
great advantages, and should claim careful consideration,
and improved development. A point of great importance
has been brought out during the present epidemic; viz., the
necessity for providing for non-pauper cases. It is
naturally a repugnant idea to an independent person, to
undergo the degradation of being pauperized before being
taken to the hospital. Another point is worthy of
attention; viz., the powers at present possessed under
the Public Health Act in regard to the compulsory
removal of infectious cases. At present only in cases
of overcrowding can such force be exercised, and
then only after a tedious application to a local Justice,
during which the time for action is lost and the mischief
done. It seems no infringement of the spirit of our
liberal constitution, if the law should give the local authority
power to remove a case of infectious disease, if the
patient's life would not be greatly endangered by such
removal, whenever the health of neighbouring families
or even of the same family is obviously imperilled.
The following Table illustrates the relative position of