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for the isolation of infectious persons whose disease made
them dangerous to others, be they paupers or not, devolve
upon the Vestries as the Sanitary Authorities concerned in
the prevention of the extension of disease.
As a result of this neglect of the Vestries, many infectious
persons of all classes sought the aid of the Relieving Officer
to obtain admission into the hospitals of the Metropolitan
Asylums Board, and were willing to become paupers rather
than expose their families to the risk of dangerous disease.
The hospitals of this Board have therefore enormously
increased in number, although it was never intended that
they should do more than provide accommodation for the
limited number of paupers requiring hospital treatment.
The Vestry of St. Pancras have, however, never lost sight
of their duty to their parishioners in this respect, and have
paid for the admission into the London Fever and London
Small-pox Hospital of all persons who required not hospital
treatment to cure them of their disease, but rather the means of
passing through their illness under circumstances which
should prevent them from being a source of danger to others.
Moreover, when the London Small-pox Hospital has been
full, and no further accommodation has existed for St.
Pancras parishioners, the Vestry have not hesitated to erect
a special hospital whenever the necessity has arisen. It is
a source of satisfaction to me to serve, as Chief Sanitary
Officer, a Vestry who were the first to erect a "parochial
fever-house," and who have at the time I write, in spite of a
hundred difficulties, again shown their determination to prevent
the spread of infectious diseases by affording facilities
for the removal of infectious persons from houses where the
disease must otherwise have inevitably spread to others.
It is very important that the relative positions of the
Metropolitan Asylums Board and the Vestry as hospital providing
authorities should be understood, and it is most easily
shown by stating that the Metropolitan Asylums Board exist
solely to maintain during their illness paupers who have fever
or small-pox, while the Vestry exist to prevent persons,
suffering from these diseases, endangering others.
It must be recollected that for the purpose of admission
into the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board
it is necessary for the sufferer to seek the aid of the Relieving
Officer and become a pauper, a course to which no objection
can be taken when the patient goes to hospital for his own