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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different position from private individuals in respect of their right to do
anything that is a nuisance. It was also held in that case that to bring
sick persons into a neighbourhood under circumstances which caused any
spread of disease was a nuisance, even though the spread of disease was
less than i t would have been if the patients had been left in their own
houses, in the neighbourhood surrounding such houses. We are of opinion
therefore, that if it can be shown that the use of the Hospital at Fulham
has caused a spread of disease in the neighbourhood, either by the direct
spread of disease from the Hospital, or from the transit of the patients,
then there is a legal nuisance, and an injunction could be obtained by
any neighbouring land-owner whose land was rendered less healthy, to
restrain them from continuing so to use the Hospital; a fortiori, an
injunction could, under the same circumstances, be obtained to prevent
them increasing it. 4—The District Board could not, as the Sanitary
Authority, bring an action against the Asylum Board, but they might,
should the increase of small-pox patients in the Hospital, or the spread of
the disease from the present number amount to a nuisance, proceed by
indictment against the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylum Board ; we
think, however, there would be some prejudice against criminal proceedings
in such a case, and in our view, the neighburing owners, rather than the
District Board, are the persons who can most safely move in the matters
(Signed) Farrer Herschell,
Hy. M. Bompas,
R. J, Biron.
Temple, March 12th, 1881.
It is somewhat remarkable that the Fulham Board, entertaining
views hostile to the continuance of the hospital, should have asked
the Asylum Board to grant them the loan of a portion of the site
for the purpose of erecting thereon an additional hospital for the
special use of the parishes of Fulham and Hammersmith.
DISTRICT HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION.
Proceedings of the Fulham Board of Works.—The
Fulham Board have been very energetic in their efforts to
provide local accommodation for their sick. At the time when
the hospitals were full, the Board set up a tent hospital one night,
on a "public street" called Imperial Road, abutting on the Thames,
near the railway bridge between Chelsea and Battersea stations
on the West London Extension Railway. Proceedings were instantly
taken against the Board by the Gas Light and Coke Company,
in deference to the panic of their employes. The hospital