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27
Many circumstances have contributed to increase, year by year,
the demand among the public for admission to the Fever Hospitals.
Among these circumstances are:—
(1.) The depauperisation of medical relief in the Hospitals;
(2.) The admission to the Hospitals of all classes of the people;
(3.) The gratuitous isolation and treatment;
(4.) The increasing popularity of the Hospitals; and
(6.) The growing recognition by the public of the many
advantages, both to the patient and to the rest of the
family, accruing from the prompt and complete isolation
of infectious illness.
Return Cases.—During the year there were good grounds for
belief that the infection in 8 instances was communicated by a
patient who had been recently discharged, as free from infection,
from one of the Metropolitan Asylums Board's Fever Hospitals.
This is a rare occurrence, for every possible effort is made to prevent
it, but the circumstance is worthy of note by parishioners, who will
always do well to isolate children for at least a few days after they
have returned from a Fever Hospital.
In case A, a boy who had just been discharged from a Fever
Hospital re-introduced the infection of Scarlet Fever into his own
dwelling and into that next door, within a week of his return.
In case B, a child who was discharged from Hospital was, on
the same night, made to occupy the same bed with another child.
The other child became infected within a week.
In case C, a child showed symptoms of Scarlet Fever in 5 days
after the return of his brother, who had been suffering from the same
complaint, from Hospital.
SUMMER DIAREHŒA.
The mortality from Diarrhoea for the Country as a whole shows
a marked increase upon that of the year 1896, but, strange to say,