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75
to the Poor Law districts; and over a large part of London
the sanitary and the Poor Law districts are not coterminous.
This anomaly arises out of the origin of the Board as a body
elected by the guardians for purposes connected with the
administration of the Poor Law. The reasons for its
continuance are purely financial; and, as the committee
observe, it might now well be abolished, by an alteration
in the law which would enable the Managers to
charge the maintenance of patients, and make their precepts
direct, upon the common poor fund; when there would be
nothing to prevent the patients admitted to the hospitals being
classified to the sanitary districts, a course that would enable
a comparison to be made of the notification statistics with
the admission statistics, which would then possess its full
scientific value. Of 16,894 cases notified as scarlet fever,
12,840, or 73.87 per cent. were admitted to the hospitals. Of
11,543 cases notified as dipththeria, 7,388, or 64 00 per cent.
were admitted. Great variations are observed from week
to week in the percentage of notified cases of these diseases admitted
to hospital; ranging from 62 42 to 83.68 in the case
of scarlet fever, and from 53.20 to 73.91 in the case of diphtheria.
For the first time since 1892 the Managers were practically
able to receive all cases offered for admission. From
the point of view of hospital provision, other than for smallpox,
which is not dealt with in the infectious hospitals in
London, the diseases of the greatest interest to the Managers
are scarlet fever and diphtheria; as any cases of enteric fever
they may be unable to accommodate in their own hospitals
can generally be received, under an existing arrangement,
into one or other of the large general hospitals. Since
1890 the proportion of scarlet fever admissions has risen
from 42.82 to 74.07, and of diphtheria from 17.87 to
62.48 per cent. of cases notified. The rise in the percentage
of diphtheria admissions has been exceptionally great and