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75
Subsequent to writing this report a letter was received from the
Metropolitan Asylums' Board enclosing a list of that Board's Cholera
Ambulance Stations, and of the Hospitals and Infirmaries which had
promised to provide accommodation for patients. The list shewed
another ambulance station for Bromley at the Poplar Hospital. The
letter also stated that ambulances would not be placed at the said
stations, unless cholera actually appeared in an epidemic form in
London, any isolated cases would be removed by the ordinary
ambulance service. Another letter was received from the Asylums
Board, stating that" for some weeks past the number of deaths
"registered in London as from cholera had been considerably in
"excess of the number of cases of that disease notified under the
"provisions of section 55 of the Public Health (London) Act. This
"seems to suggest that there is a general impression amongst
" medical practitioners that cholera is not a notifiable diseasethe
letter also asked that" the attention of all medical practitioners
"should be drawn to the matter, and that the Clerk to the Board
" would be glad to hear what action the Poplar Board proposed to
"take." I reported this letter to the Sanitary Committee, but no
resolution was passed to the effect that choleraic diarrhoea should be
included among the notifiable diseases. A letter was also received
from the Medical Officer of the London County Council, saying that
the Council had authorised him to send to Dr. Klein for the purposes
of bacteriological examination, material from cases which it is desirable
should be thus investigated, and he asked that he might have early
information of such cases, and the result of the examination would be
communicated back at the earliest possible moment.
No case of Asiatic cholera was notified either in Poplar or
Bromley. A male adult suffering with choleraic diarrhoea was
admitted into St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The patient was taken
from a barge at Blackfriars. I first learnt of this case through the
daily papers, and telephoned to the hospital for the sufferer's address.
I found that he had not been in Poplar for seven days prior to his
illness. The patient, I believe, subsequently recovered. A death