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74
Diphtheria.
No notifiable disease caused so much anxiety as Diphtheria, which,
as I have already stated, was very prevalent, and very fatal, during
the year.
The chief cause of anxiety arose from the difficulty of getting
patients isolated, owing to the want of a sufficient number of beds
in the Metropolitan Asylums Board's Hospitals.
This insufficiency of beds has been fully recognised by the Board
themselves, who point out that it is with this disease particularly that
this insufficiency is most acutely felt. "The unavoidable delay,"' their
annual report states, "sometimes experienced in ascertaining, if any,
where a vacant bed exists, and the deplorable necessity of transporting
some patients to a hospital at a considerable distance from their homes,
or the general hospital to which they have in the first instance been
taken, cause, it is feared, a great increase of both risk and discomfort
to the sufferer, and certainly much dissatisfaction to all concerned."
Dissatisfaction has been, without doubt, frequently expressed by
the Islington parents and guardians, who desired the removal of their
patients, and many times they seemed to think that the difficulty and
the delays arose in the Public Health Department, which, however, had
nothing whatever to do with it.
The hospital accommodation for Diphtheria patients, owing to the
great increase of the disease in the metropolis, is the most crying
question of the moment. The Metropolitan Asylums Board fully
recognise this, and I feel bound to say that they are most anxious to do
what they can to provide it.
I append an extract from the Statistical Committee's report to the
Managers, so that their position may be made clear:—
(6.) Diphtheria Accommodation.—It will be within the recollection of the
Managers that it was not until the end of October, 1888, that they were called upon
to admit diphtheria patients into their hospitals. At first only 94 beds in two
hospitals were set apart for the reception of these cases; but each year the number
admitted has materially increased, as will be seen from the following figures:—
Year 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893
Admissions 722 949 1,312 2,009 2,848