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cent, there was reason to think that some failure in the disinfection had taken place. Sulphur di-oxide
is generally used in London for the disinfection of rooms, but occasionally formalin has been used
tentatively.
Provision fok Shelter during Disinfection.
The extent of use of shelters is referred to in the reports of some of the medical officers of
health of districts in which such shelters have been provided. In Paddington, the family shelter
" has been most useful; during 1897 144 individuals were accommodated, comprising 92 adults and
52 children, in 52 families. The stay in each instance has ranged from one night to three days. The
house has on more than one occasion been used to receive members of families of patients needing
isolation in hospital, but for whom accommodation could not be immediately obtained. The
annual expenditure is very trifling, under £50." In Kensington, no shelter has yet been
provided, and the medical officer of health shows the need of such provision by pointing out
that in 1897, 185 cases of infectious disease occurred in families in occupation of three
rooms only, 372 cases in families occupying two rooms, and 98 cases in families occupying
single rooms. Inquiry was made for existing premises which could be used for the purpose, but without
avail. The medical officer of health states that the only satisfactory plan would be to erect a
shelter, and that this could be done most economically in connection with a disinfecting station. In the
absence of provision for the purpose, the sanitary inspectors have been authorised to pay for lodgings
for people dispossessed of their home during the process of disinfection, an arrangement
which, as he points out, is very unsatisfactory. No definite decision as to the provision of a shelter
in Fulham has been come to, but the medical officer of health points out that the Town Mead-wharf
site, where the disinfecting plant is to be placed, is a suitable site for this purpose. In St. George,
Hanover-square, the shelter which has been provided has not been used during the year. In Westminster
25 families were removed to the vestry's reception rooms. The shelter in Marylebone was
occupied nine times, 14 adults and 12 children having been temporarily accommodated. The St.
Pancras shelter was occupied by 37 persons over 10 years of age and by 27 under that age. In
Hackney the vestry allowed 2s. 6d. per night to persons requiring accommodation, the choice of the
accommodation being left to the person requiring it. The medical officer of health points out that he
has reason to believe that this system led to the infection of a person in a house accommodating a
necessitous family. The vestry has now decided to provide a shelter, and the question of site and
arrangement of the building are now under consideration. The shelter in the Strand was
made use of by eight persons. The shelter at 47, Northampton-road, conjointly used by the
Clerkenwell Vestry and the Holborn District Board, was used by 18 families from Clerkenwell
and 28 from Holborn. For the purposes of St. Luke, house accommodation with necessary
attendance has been provided at 41, Macclesfield-street. The shelter in the City was used
by 72 persons at an average cost of £4 6s. 3d. per person, including rent, taxes, repairs, &c.
In Shoreditch the shelter was used 5 times, 23 persons being accommodated. The shelter in
St. George-in-the-East was not used during the year. In Limehouse the shelter received 16 families,
comprising 29 adults and 39 children. In St. George, Southwark, " a refuge house has been established
and is in working order." In St. Olave the shelter has been used 20 times during the year
by 66 persons, 64 of whom were provided with sleeping accommodation. In Bermondsey no shelter
has been provided. During the year 63 families, consisting of 123 adults and 158 children,
were turned out of their homes to enable disinfection to be properly carried out. Efforts have been
made in past years to secure accommodation, but without success. In Lambeth the shelter was
used 3 times, and was occupied by 9 adults and 5 children. "The refuge at the wharf has not
been used as much as was expected, owing, no doubt, to its position in the vestry's dust depot, and
the parish therefore requires another one in a more suitable situation." The Greenwich shelter has not
been used during the year. The Plumstead shelter was completed in, but not used, during the year.
Hospital Provision for Infectious Disease.
The amount of hospital provision for infectious diseases is shown in the following paragraphs
contained in the report for 1897 of the Statistical Committee of the Metropolitan Asylums Board—
"Fever and diphtheria.—The Park Hospital, at Hither-green, Lewisham, which was opened by T.R.H.
the Prince and Princess of Wales, began to receive patients on 8th November last. This hospital is
designed to accommodate 548 patients. During the current year it is hoped that the Grove Hospital at
Tooting will be completed, and that the 620 beds which it will provide may be brought into use. There
will then only remain, to complete the managers' scheme of hospital accommodation as at present laid
down, the erection of the Southern Convalescent Hospital, and certain works of reconstruction and
enlargement at the Western and North-Eastern Hospitals. The works at the Western Hospital will
probahly be completed this year. When the last of the above-mentioned works are finished the managers
will have at their disposal for fever and diphtheria cases (including typhoid fever and isolation cases)
upwards of 6,000 beds. In addition, there is the Gore Farm Hospital, which can furnish 740 beds, for
convalescent fever cases, but only so long as it is not required for its proper function of a smallpox convalescent
hospital. Though, since 1887, the managers have practically doubled their fever accommodation,
which has now reached a magnitude of which no one dreamed only five years ago, our present
report records, for the fifth year in succession, the entire failure of that accommodation to meet all the
demands made upon it during the season of greatest pressure.
Smallpox.—For this disease the managers possess 300 beds at the hospital ships, and are about to
erect further buildings capable of containing 400 beds on the Joyce-green estate, adjoining the hospital
ships. Gore-farm, if at any time the managers are compelled to reclaim it for its original purpose, can,
for smallpox convalescents, furnish about 1,192 beds more."
The Cleansing of Persons Act.
In 1897 "The Cleansing of Persons Act" was passed. This Act, in its relation to London,
empowers every sanitary authority, " when in their discretion they see fit, to permit any person who
shall apply to the said authority, on the ground that he is infested with vermin, to have the use, free