View report page

29
THE SMALL-POX OUTBREAK.
Since 1870 there have occurred in London, epidemics in 1871-2,
1877-8, 1881, 1884-5 and 1893; so that during the last 32 years we
have passed through five epidemics, and are now experiencing the
sixth. In taking its rise during the late summer and spreading over
London during the autumn and winter, the present epidemic has
pursued a most unusual course, for in the ordinary way Small-pox
is most prevalent (luring the first seven months of the year, and
especially so in the spring.
What the exact amount of accommodation ought to be which
the Metropolitan Asylums Board should have at its disposal is by no
means an easy question to answer, as the fluctuations in the amount
of Small-pox prevailing are enormous. Thus in 1884 and 1885 there
were over 6,000 cases under treatment annually; whereas in 1889
and 1898 only live persons suffered from this disease during each of
these years.
The Royal Commission, in their report issued as long ago as
1882, named 2,700 beds as the provision for a population which then
fell short of 3,900,000, and it was obvious that our arrangements ought
in no case to fall below that number. But at the time that the present
Small-pox seemed to indicate activity the Board had but 250 beds at
the hospital ships. Their only other existing hospital (Gore Farm) was
at that time unavailable, being occupied by fever patients. In the
early autumn that hospital was cleared of those patients and disinfected,
and the first Small-pox patients entered on October 30.
Quickly following that (November 2) directions were given for
additional staff and isolation quarters to be erected at Gore Farm, the
insufficiency of that provision being a hindrance to the use of the
whole of the 1,000 beds of the upper hospital. As the Small-pox outbreak
appeared to be still developing, the Board (November 2) ordered,
as an auxiliary to the hospital ships, another hospital (Long Reach
Hospital) to be built for 300 beds. At the commencement of January,
1902 instructions were given for the erection—as rapidly as possible
—of a hospital for 800 beds more, on a site selected on the Board's.