View report page

15
HOSPITAL
ACCOMMODATION.
Of the cases removed to hospital during the year, 5 typhoid
and 1 puerperal fever were admitted to the London
Hospital; 5 erysipelas and 4 typhoid cases went to the
Poplar and Stepney Sick Asylum; 1 typhoid to St. Bartholomew's,
and the remainder to the hospitals of the Metropolitan
Asylums Board.
Perhaps one of the most gratifying advances in sanitation in the
eastern districts is the popularity of removal to hospitals in cases of
infectious sickness. Twenty-five years ago there were but two
hospitals in London available for infectious disease cases, the Fever
Hospital in Liverpool Road and the Highgate Smallpox Hospital.
Only selected cases could be removed, and after considerable trouble
had been taken by parents and officials; then those institutions
required heavy payments which the individual had to find. But now
we have the Metropolitan Asylums Board with its palatial hospitals,
and magnificent attention to minute details, prompt removal, and,
above all, freedom from charge, and after a few years of popular
education the receipt by the sanitary authority of a notification of a
case of infectious disease is often accompanied by a request for
removal. This has only to be contrasted with the state of things in
former years, when accommodation was limited and popular prejudice
was almost insurmountable, to appreciate the progress which in this
one aspect of sanitation alone has been made.
During the year the sanitary staff has experienced little or no
difficulty in securing the prompt removal of cases where it was either
necessary or desired.
Section 55 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, sub-section
(b) is thus worded, and has frequently given rise to most interesting
discussions as to the duty and action of the medical practitioner and
other responsible authorities, our own included:—
"Every medical practitioner attending on or called in to visit the