Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]
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inhabitants. The drains are regularly disinfected; all broken food and
the sweepings of the wards are destroyed; disinfectants are freely
used. The laundry work is done on the premises by resident servants:
no one is allowed to leave the grounds without bathing and change of
clothing; and although people are allowed, under carefully devised
restrictions and precautions, to visit relatives dangerously ill, there is
scarcely an instance known in which visitors have contracted the
disease.*
The hospital stands in its own grounds of some six acres. It consists
of 10 pavilions, with accommodation for 250 patients. Each bed has
an allowance of 144 square feet of floor space, and each patient an
air space of 2,100 cubic feet. Every ward is well warmed and
ventilated, being lighted with numerous opposite windows. The officers
are housed in a separate "administrative" block of permanent
construction. The site is bounded north and south, respectively, by
the Lillie Bridge and the Stamford Bridge Running Grounds ; on the
west by a large open space in Fulham, and oil the east by the West
London- Railway and the Brompton Cemetery. The grounds, attractively
laid out, are enclosed by efficient fences, and many trees have
been planted within them. The nearest inhabited houses in Fulham are
about 150 yards from the hospital; and the nearest houses in Kensington
nearly double this distance.
The accompanying tracing, from Bacon's map, of the surrounding
district, for which I am indebted to your Vestry's Surveyor, will give
a better idea of the locality than any verbal description. It shows
clearly the distance-relations of the hospital-site to the parishes of
Kensington and Chelsea, and its position in Fulham parish; and that in
all directons the buildings are isolated by large open spaces. The radius
of the circle traced round the hospital is one thousand feet, and the distance
from the eastern border of tae site to Ifield Road 750 feet, or 7
times the distance deemed requisite for security. The intervening space
is occupied by the West London Railway and Brompton Cemetery,
which abounds in evergreen and other trees, the effect of which in arresting
the passage of malaria is well known. The hospital, consisting
* "During the year there were 139 patients on the visiting list as 'dangerously
ill;100 were visited by 125 visitors, paying 298 visits, only one of the visitors
was subsequently admitted to the hospital within 14 d ays time of her husband's
admission, and 10 days of her first visit."— Report of the Medical Superintendent.