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Asylums.—Patients admitted, 770; discharged or transferred to other places, 94;
died, 555: remaining, 6,642.
Children's Homes and Schools.—Children admitted, 4,706; discharged, 4,344; died,
21: remaining, 1,501.
Training Ship " Exmouth."—Boys admitted, 294; discharges to Royal Navy, 103; to
mercantile marine, 105; to army, 17; other discharges, 30; died, 2: remaining, 560.
Number of persons in the various institutions on the last day of the year: Permanent
staff, 4,636; Temporary staff, 413; Inmates, 12,028: Total, 17,077.
The area of the District served by the Board is 121 square miles, having a population,
estimated to middle of 1904, of 4,648,950.
The following items may be deemed of interest: —
Expenditure on land and buildings for 18 hospitals for infectious diseases, to October,
1904, amounted to £8,882,010, including £229,400 on the Western Hospital (452 beds) to
which Kensington cases are removed, and £380,054 on the Gore Farm Hospitals (1,814
beds), which were not used for infect ious diseases during the year. The "direct" and
"common" charges in connexion with the hospitals for the year, amounted to £344,451.
The fever hospitals, irrespective of Gore Farm, provide accommodation for 4,981
patients, which will be increased by 1,288 beds when the South-Eastern Hospital, and the
Southern Convalescent Hospital, shall have been completed.
For small-pox, provision has been made for 2,040 patients.
On two seaside Homes for Children suffering from tuberculous diseases, about £46,000
has been expended.
Ambulance Service.—The land Ambulance Stations have cost £96,292 (for land, £7,272;
for buildings, £89,020); the River Service, £114,074, (for land, £22,329; for steamers,
£40,988, and for 3 wharves, £73,086), a total expenditure of £210,366. The expenditure
on the service during the year (£36,053) is a "common charge" on the rates.
Use of the Hospitals, etc.—It is made evident throughout the report, that the Public
Health Authorities avail themselves fully of the facilities provided for the isolation of
infectious patients. But the Managers express regret for the failure of the Boards of
Guardians to " make full use of the homes and schools." Attention is called to the
" interesting experiment of receiving, at the Millfield Home, Rustington, near Littlehampton,
children in the early stages of pulmonary tuberculosis. "The Children's Committee" have
every reason to be satisfied with the results achieved there," and yet," notwithstanding the
clamour for the public provision of special treatment for consumptives, a considerable
number of vacancies remain unfilled at the home." The "clamour," it need hardly be said,
is not made by the authorities responsible for the public health, but who have no control over the
admittance of sufferers to this Home, or to the East Cliff Home at Margate,* the only exibting
public institutions, other than workhouses and parochial infirmaries, available for Metropolitan
consumptives, and these of the pauper class only. With regard to non-chargeable pufferers,
the Committee for General Purposes report that " although more than twelve months have
elapsed since the Managers asked the Local Government Board for an authoritative expression
of their opinion upon the proposal of Metropolitan local authorities that the
Managers should establish sanatoria for the treatment of consumptive patients, no reply to
the Clerk's letter of the 4th December, 1903, has yet (January 1st, 1905) been received
from the Local Government Board."
* This Home is mainly for children suffering from surgical forms of tuberculous disease, especially spinal, hip and other
joint cases "which derive altogether exceptional benefit from a maximum of fresh air and sunlight." The Home is equipped fo
dealing with several hundred cases annually.—(Report for 1904 of the Medical Officer.)