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1881, has been perfected by the Managers, who, since 1884,
have, to all intents and purposes, discontinued the use of the
town hospitals for the isolation of small-pox, and now remove
direct from their homes to the ships all patients suffering from
this disease.
DEFICIENCY OF FEVER HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION
IN 1895.
That there is need for the increased provision of hospital
accommodation referred to in the preceding section, was amply
shown last year, during the latter half of which there was
scarcely a day in which the Managers were able to comply
with the whole of the applications made to them for beds for
persons suffering from scarlet fever or diphtheria. I had
occasion to refer to the subject in several of my monthly
reports, beginning with No. 7 (July 20th, page 100), in which
I stated that, owing to the increased prevalence of both the
diseases named, the hospitals had been for some time full,
patients being denied admittance every day. In this parish
alone, as many as eight scarlet fever patients and five suffering
from diphtheria, were at one time detained at home for
want of room. Duly regarding the urgency of the matter,
the Managers resolved, on July 6th, to re-open the Gore
Farm (convalescent small-pox) Hospital at Darenth, for
scarlet fever convalescent patients, and they also requested the
Medical Superintendents of the several town hospitals to make
arrangements to increase the accommodation in the wards at
these institutions, which was done to the extent of some five
hundred beds in all. Just at this time, unfortunately, there
was a sharp recrudescence of small pox in London, and the
Small-pox Hospitals Committee felt that it would not be
prudent to divert any portion of the Gore Farm Hospital from
its proper use, the result being that, from want of the 1,000
beds, the " Upper " Hospital on that site could have