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Towards the end of the year 1883 the Metropolitan Asylums
Board, who had already made some use of a hospital camp at
Darenth, and a hospital ship, the "Atlas," moored at Greenwich,
for the treatment of Small-Pox patients, decided to make
important changes in its method of dealing with London Small-Pox.
The "Atlas" hospital ship was moved to Long Reach, about
20 miles below London Bridge, and well without the metropolitan
area, and re-opened in February 1884; the hospital camp at
Darenth was re-opened early in the following month; in June of
the same year a second hospital ship, the "Castalia," was opened
alongside the "Atlas," and a second hospital camp opened at
Darenth; and from February to October, 1884, the cases of SmallPox
received by the Board were dealt with in the following
manner:—Cases of Small-Pox were received at first at three, and
afterwards at six, intra-urban hospitals and there treated—(in
May the hospitals at Hampstead and Fulham had been re-opened
for this purpose, and a sixth hospital hired at Plaistow, just
beyond the metropolitan boundary, but in a populous district)—
but the number of cases under treatment in each intra-urban
hospital at any one time was not allowed to exceed 50, mild and
convalescent cases being thence transferred from time to time to
the hospital ships and camps, where their treatment was continued;
after the middle of June mild cases of Small-Pox were also received
on the hospital ships directly from their homes. Complaints,
however, again arose that some of the six intra-urban hospitals,
and even that the hospital camps at Darenth, were spreading
Small-Pox in their vicinity, legal proceedings being instituted with
reference to the use of the latter; and from October, 1884, though
the Board continued for a time to follow the same method of
dealing with cases of Small-Pox, but the number of cases under
treatment in each intra-urban hospital at any one time was not
allowed, as a rule, to exceed 25.
Finally, in July, 1885, the Metropolitan Asylums Board
decided thenceforward to treat, in the first instance, on the