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134
PRINCIPLES OF HOSPITAL CONSTRUCTION.
At the meeting of the Asylums Board held on the 30th
September, 1893, a Local Government Board Inspector, in the
course of an address to the Managers, referred to the temporary
nature of the buildings of some of the hospitals, and
to the fact that some of such buildings were now being
replaced by brick structures. He suggested that before any
further changes of this nature were made, a ground plan
should be prepared in each case, showing the existing buildings,
and the outlines of the completed permanent Hospital,
and that in order to co-ordinate the action of the
several Hospital Committees, and to secure broad lines
of uniformity, the Managers should settle some of the fundamental
points which should govern the preparation of such
schemes. Whereupon the Board resolved :—
"That the General Purposes Committee be instructed to consider and report
(a) as to the expediency of the'Managers giving directions for the preparation
of ground plans, which shall indicate in what manner, and to what
extent, it is proposed to replace by permaneut buildings the existing
temporary structures at the Board's Fever Hospitals, and (b) as to the
advisability of the Board settling certain principles of Hospital construction
as a basis for the guidance of the Hospital Committees of
Management."
This is a wise decision, and it is to be regretted that it
was not arrived at long ago. I referred to the subject nearly
two years ago, in my tenth monthly report for 1892, when,
alluding to the necessity for the provision, of a permanent
sort, of hospitals to supply the reasonable maximum requirements
of the Metropolis, I remarked that " How this should
be done is a subject well worthy of the attention of the
Asylums Board, and indeed of the Local Government Board.
Among the first questions to be settled " (I added) "would
be the number of beds which may properly be placed on a
given space, say in pavilions of two storeys each ? and to
what extent additional accommodation may properly be