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75
but also by private medical practitioners and others. Among
these circumstances may be mentioned, the depauperisation of
medical relief in the hospitals, and the opening of the several
institutions to all classes of the people (measures advocated
in these reports many years before they formed the subjects
of legislation); the admission of patients, on whatever form of
application, subject only to the production of a medical
certificate; gratuitous treatment; the popularity of the hospitals
themselves; and the increasing recognition by the
public of the advantages accruing from the isolation of the infectious
sick. The operation of compulsory notification, moreover,
has had great effect, for now that the sanitary authorities
become acquainted with, practically, all cases of infectious
disease, they are able to secure the admittance to hospital of
numbers of cases, such as in pre-notification days they would
probably never have so much as heard. In connection with
this important question, it may be mentioned that so far back
as the end of 1893, the Managers had provided normal accommodation
to the extent of about 3,000 beds, for fever and
diphtheria patients, by the erection of additional temporary
hospitals at Tottenham and Lower Tooting. Since that date
the Brook Hospital, for upwards of 500 patients, has been
erected and opened at Shooter's-hill, and the Park Hospital at
Hither-green, Lewisham, also for upwards of 500 patients. An
equally large hospital to be designated "Grove" will at no
great distance of time be opened at Tooting, adjoining the
"Fountain" hospital, described as a temporary hospital,
although from the character of its construction it is calculated
to be serviceable for many years. These three hospitals for
acute cases of fever, scarlet fever, and diphtheria, in addition to
isolation wards, will thus add some 1,650 beds to those
previously provided by the Managers; who, moreover, have
acquired a site of 135 acres at Carshalton, Surrey, for a convalescent
fever hospital for 700 beds; having already, at
Winchmore-hill, north of the Thames, the Northern