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too much to say that the advantage of a physician with a diploma in PublicHealth
being resident at a hospital of this size has already proved as good
in practice as it is in theory.
The Clerk and Surveyor of the Enfield Council act, as heretofore, as
Clerk and Architect to the Hospital, respectively.
Weekly Returns from the Isolation Hospital. In
September I reported that in times past neither I nor my Council had been
made fully aware of the welfare of Edmonton patients sent to the Hospital
we share with Enfield. Deaths of children were rarely heard of, until weeks
afterwards from the Enfield Registrar, and I advised my Sanitary Committee
to ask the Joint Board to instruct their Medical Superintendent to send me
every Monday a list showing the admissions, discharges, and deaths during
the past week, and the number of Edmonton patients remaining in hospital
on the previous Saturday night, classed according to their diseases. I regret
to say that my Committee recommended that this information be regularly
supplied me as regards the deaths of patients only. The other information
is both useful and necessary to the Edmonton Medical Officer of Health.
Fire. The Hospital is in telephonic communication with Edmonton
Fire Station.
Extension of Hospital. On January 28th I attended a Local
Government Board inquiry at Enfield with reference to this subject. A loan
of £5,200 was asked for to build a block of two wards to replace a temporary
building, half of which was destroyed by fire on January 26tli, 1907; the
total gain of beds, when the latter building was dispensed with, being fourteen.
I gave evidence thereat, and expressed a firm opinion, from my knowledge
of the history of the Edmonton cases treated there for nearly twoyears
past, that extension of accommodation was needed, but that the loan
asked for would be better spent in erecting a block on the glass cubicle
plan. I added that I had satisfied myself that this Walthamstow pattern was
as cheap—if not cheaper—than the conventional and old-fashioned one, and
was certainly much more efficient in checking cross-infection and persistent
ear and nose discharges, which latter are the cause of so many return cases.
These views met with opposition from more than one quarter, but subsequent
events have justified all I then said.
Under date December 17th, the Hospital Board advised us that the-
accommodation for Diphtheria was fully occupied. Since then we have
availed ourselves, when necessary, of beds at the Walthamstow Isolation
Hospital.