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14
SCARLET FEVER.
There was a satisfactory reduction in the number of cases of scarlet
fever notified, namely from 158 in 1895 to 114 in 1896, and there was
no fatal case registered.
The Hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board were unfortunately
frequently full, both for scarlet fever and diphtheria patients,
so that instead of being able to have a case at once removed, I had to
carefully examine the urgency of each case, and report the same, day by
day, to Norfolk House. I made arrangements for isolation as far as it
was possible, but even the most urgent cases, those in tenements of only
one room, could not be removed till after many applications. Two or
three cases in the same tenement was of frequent occurrence.
On this account I wrote the following letter to the Managers, and
asked Dr. Perry to do what he could in the matter:
"As this Board cannot have even the most urgent cases of
scarlet fever removed to your Board's Hospitals, I hope you will
give your permission for a few more patients to be admitted to
the larger wards of the hospitals."
"It must surely be a much less evil that patients should
have only 1,600 cu. ft., say (instead of the 2,000 cu. ft., now
allowed), than to be kept in crowded rooms with probably less
than 150 cu. ft., and at the same time mixed with healthy
children, and a source of danger to many others."
"A ward now having 24 beds would then accommodate
30 patients."
I am glad to find that this recommendation was adopted, for whilst
the certified normal accommodation for fever and diphtheria at the
Board's disposal was less than 3,900 beds, this number was for many
months largely exceeded, and that when scarlet fever and diphtheria
were at their highest, 4,996 cases (or nearly 1,100 above the normal
accommodation) were at one time warded in the Managers' Hospitals.
The upper hospital at Gore Farm, which was built for convalescent
small pox patients, was also again appropriated to fever and diphtheria
patients