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of their sending information, by means of their Visitors, of
cases of infectious disease to the Sanitary Inspectors, and of
their forbidding the attendance at School of children from
infected houses. I received a favourable reply, and also an
acknowledgment of the services rendered them by your
Inspector in giving them information from time to time.
Having been informed that cases of scarlet fever were
being admitted into the general wards of St. George's
Hospital, and treated there with patients not suffering from
that disease, I wrote to the Secretary, on February 26th,
1878, to ask if scarlet fever patients were admitted, "and
if so, whether there is a separate fever ward, and what
precautions are taken to prevent infection spreading to other
patients, or to visitors ?" After a long correspondence, in
the course of which I fortified myself with the opinions of
Sir William Gull and Professor de Chaumont, of Netley, on
the matter, I at last received a letter, dated May 15th,
1878, from the Secretary to the Hospital, in which he says,
"I am directed by the Weekly Board of Governors of this
day to inform you, in answer to your letter of the 14th inst.,
that scarlet fever is not now admissible into this Hospital,
in accordance with a resolution passed at the Quarterly and
Special Court of Friday last."
Sir William Gull wrote to me in answer to a general
question and without reference to St. George's or any other
Hospital, as follows:—
"It is obviously unfair that patients suffering under
non-contagious diseases should, by admission into a
Hospital, be made to incur the risk of contracting a contagious
disease, which may be far more serious than their
original maladies.
"It would be a grave miscarriage of charity to afford
relief with one hand, and the risk of a fatal poison with the
other."