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ready to be removed, but there was no room in the hospitals. But even
when there was a vacant bed it was not at all certain that the cases
recommended by the Public Health Department would be removed.
On one occasion a gentleman living at Colebrooke Row called on me to
have his house disinfected, as the patient had been removed to the
Metropolitan Asylums Board's hospital. I was naturally surprised, and
while I congratulated him on his good fortune, I could not help saying
it was a public scandal that, whilst there were numbers of persons in
tenemented houses anxious for removal who could not possibly be
isolated at home, and who, therefore, urgently needed removal, cases
such as his should be taken away on his personal application.
I assert now, as I have asserted before to the Public Health Committee,
that while in non-epidemic times, when there is a freedom from
infectious disease, the Metropolitan Asylums Board ought to be allowed
to isolate such cases as they desired, yet when an epidemic was prevalent
and there was a serious demand for beds, that then only the cases
recommended by the sanitary authorities, including, of course, the
paupers, should be removed.
The sanitary authorities know the necessities of every case, and
are consequently better able to judge than either the Metropolitan
Asylums Board or private practitioners as to who should be first
removed. The Metropolitan Asylums Board cannot, and does not,
know the particulars of each case, and medical men only know those
which come under their own observation. It is our duty, as the sanitary
authority, to prevent disease, and we therefore made the necessary
enquiries with this object, but our best efforts were defeated by the
non-removal of our urgent cases.
In consequence of this state of affairs the following communication
was addressed to the Clerk of the Metropolitan Asylums Board on the
30th November, 1893:—
Dear Sir,
The Public Health Committee has recently had under its consideration
the question of the removal of patients during periods when epidemic diseases are
prevalent; and it has passed the accompanying resolution which it believes will
tend to the greater certainty of having the fittest cases removed to your Hospitals.