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prepared to give favourable consideration to any application for their
approval, provided they are satisfied that the Local Authority are in a
position, and are ready to deal effectively with the cases notified to them."
THE SANATORIUM QUESTION THE LOCAL
GOVERNMENT BOARD'S DECISION.
In my last Annual Report it was stated that the General Purposes
Committee of the Metropolitan Asylumns Board had under consideration
a memorial addressed to the Managers by the Metropolitan Branch of the
Society of Medical Officers of Health ... on the subject of the provision of
hospital accommodation for the treatment and isolation of patients
suffering from pulmonary phthisis. The prayer of the said Memorial
was:—
" (a) That an Order of the Local Government Board be
" obtained to make Section 5 of the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867,
" applicable to the case of ' poor persons ' suffering from pulmonary
" phthisis (consumption); and, if necessary,
" (6) That an Act be obtained to make the provisions of
" Section 80 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, applicable
" to pulmonary phthisis (consumption), as if such disease were
" therein mentioned as well as ' fever or smallpox or diphtheria.' "
The Metropolitan Asylums Board forwarded a copy of the Memorial
to the Local Government Board in April, 1905.
It was further resolved to inform the Local Government Board
that:—
" Having regard to the uncertainty which prevails as to the
" probable number of patients who would come under the schemes
" referred to in the memorial, and to the great prospective cost to
" the ratepayers of the Metropolis, the Managers will be glad to
"receive the judgment of the Local Government Board upon the
" prayer of the memorial referred to."
At the meeting of the Managers on the 31st March, the Board's
"judgment" was read as follows :—