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which in our judgment, can no longer be used, to anything
like their present extent, for cases of Small Pox, should we
think, become in the main Fever hospitals. And we
think it probable that with the aid of another hospital,
which appears to be almost indispensable for the east of
London, they would fully accommodate all the cases requiring
London treatment.
"By these arrangements cases of fever would be adequately
provided for.
"Of the 2100 small pox cases, the mild, and with them the
convalescent cases, being probably more than three-quarters
of the whole, should be provided for in two or three more
country hospitals.
"The remainder, being the severe cases, during their acute
stage must be provided for in or within easy reach of
London.
"For these 400 or 500 persons who, being too ill to take a
long land journey to the country hospitals, but at the same
time not too ill to be removed from their immediate neighbourhood,
cannot or will not be properly isolated by those in
charge of them, we think, in the first place, that administrative
blocks with a few small wards attached to them might
be maintained within the precincts of the fever hospitals,
sufficient, in each hospital for 30 or 40 small pox patients;
that the hospital authorities should divide the Metropolis
into hospital districts, assigning one to each hospital; and
that no hospital should receive small pox patients except
from the district in which it is situated.
"This qualification is required not only becanse the patients
will always be such as must be sent to the nearest hospital,
but also to obviate, as far as the nature of the case admits of
it, the great and natural complaint of those who are in the
neighbourhood of large small pox hospitals, that the infec-'
tion of the rest of London is poured in upon them.
"With regard to matters of detail, we have already recommended
that the hospital authorities should have the entire
control of the ambulances, by which all other modes of conveyance
should be as far as possible superseded."