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79
and enteric fever 120 beds, in addition to 60 beds for isolation
purposes. Accommodation is also provided for 316 staff. The
hospital is replete with the latest improvements, and an
inspection of it afforded satisfaction to many visitors, both on
the occasion of a formal opening by the Prince and Princess
of Wales, and subsequently when invitations had been issued
to the Sanitary Authorities of the metropolis and others
interested in the matter of accommodation for sufferers from
infectious disease.
DEFICIENCY OF HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION.
In the tenth report (October 13th, page 116), I had to state
that the Asylums Board had been unable for some weeks to
accommodate all of the patients for whose admission application
had been made by the Sanitary Authorities and others.
All cases of diphtheria were received, and this was well,
although it entailed the refusal of many cases of scarlet fever,
a disease which apparently is becoming, year by year, less
fatal. The deaths from this cause were, as we have seen,
far below the average, corrected for increase of population,
although the malady was very prevalent, as shown by the
monthly notification table, (vide page 84.) In this parish there
were as many as 27 cases awaiting removal at one time.
Assuming a proportional number of cases, proper for removal
and not removed, in the other sanitary districts, the total for
London would have been at least 700 cases, or considerably
more than the accommodation provided at the Park Hospital
for all classes of infectious disease, &c.; so that the hospital,
when opened in November, would not have cleared off the
arrear cases had scarlet fever continued as prevalent as it was
in September and October. The only remaining provision of
accommodation for fever in present contemplation, apart from
enlargement of existing hospitals, is that at Carshalton, where,
as already stated, a convalescent hospital is to be erected for
700 patients, on a site of some 135 acres. As the Northern
Hospital, at Winchmore-hill, provides for nearly 1,000 cases
on a site not exceeding 30 acres, it is deserving of the