View report page

71
with provision for erecting bath, washing and closet accommodation,
kitchen, scullery, store-room, and room for the matron. The building
is nearly 100 feet long and 40 feet broad, and allows 1400 cubic feet
for each patient; cost £280; and would take one week to erect;
but then the fittings for firing, washing, cooking, and lighting, together
with drainage, must be considered. I have interviewed Messrs.
Atkinson, of Westminster Bridge Road, who would undertake the
furnishing. Tents could be erected if necessary. Messrs. Piggott
Brothers & Company, 57, 58 and 59 Bishopsgate Street Without,
write that they could supply tents at a day's notice (if they were not
pressed with orders), but tents could be only used during the warm
weather, and then there would be the difficulty about fittings, &c.,
and the disposal of the sewage. I have also written concerning tents,
to Mr. Thomas Briggs, of 2, Budge Row, Victoria Street,
"The most important primary point for the Committee's urgent
consideration is—what is to be done for the isolation of sporadic or
individual cases in order to prevent an epidemic. Immediate
accommodation must be found, so that, should a case of Cholera occur
at any moment, it can be at once isolated, or the people in the
house removed and housed. I therefore would urge the Committee
to rent for the next 6 months houses for isolation or refuge purposes.
In taking houses in crowded districts it is a happy fact to know that
the limitation of this fatal disease to the sufferer can be brought about
by the proper disinfection of any matter which comes away from the
patient: it is by the discharges not being rendered innocuous that
the disease is spread.
"The site of the houses must be considered, as it is not advisable
to remove Cholera patients long distances on account of the painnerve
depression, and failure of circulation. I have been in communication
with several persons, and I have a number of houses for
the consideration of the Committee, and from which to choose. I
have interviewed and written to the officials of the County Council
respecting the temporary letting of certain houses at present in the