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32
Science Association, &c., had waited on the President to urge the
Government to bring in a measure to secure, inter alia, the "compulsory
notification of infectious disease," and Mr. Dodson having
stated that the "hospital question," one of supreme difficulty at the
moment, was underlying that subject, and having pressed for definite
information, I was requested by the deputation to supply such information.
In doing so I dwelt mainly on a branch of the " hospital
question" which I had previously brought under the notice of the
Asylums Board, viz., the necessity for making provision for the
reception and treatment of mild and convalescent cases of small-pox
in temporary hospitals outside London, and gave it as my opinion
that" the difficulty in which the Managers found themselves placed,"
would vanish if such provision were made. "These views," I
stated in my report "were approved by the deputation, and it is
satisfactory to know that they commended themselves to the
judgment of the President, and led to results which will have an
important bearing in the future on this question of hospital
accommodation," for action was at once taken by the Local
Government Board and the Managers, which led to the opening
on Wednesday, May 11th, 1881, of the Darenth Convalescent
Camp Hospital, the success of which was instant and so complete
that from the time it was brought into working order, the pressure
on the Metropolitan Small-pox Hospitals, which were full to overflowing,
hundreds of patients moreover, waiting for admission, was
relieved, and the difficulty in which the Managers had so long been
placed, owing to the rapid and extensive spread of the epidemic,
ceased, once and for all.
Too much praise cannot be given to the Managers, and
especially to the Darenth Committee and their Chairman, Sir E. H.
Currie, for the splendid work they accomplished with such
celerity and success, and it is with unfeigned satisfaction that I
lay before your Vestry a brief abstract of the Report of
Dr. Gayton, the Medical Superintendent of the Camp, describing
that success, together with an extract from the Annual Report of
Dr. MacCombie, the Superintendent of the Deptford Small-pox
Hospital, to which institution the convalescents from the other
hospitals were transferred en route for Darenth.
"When it was decided to establish a camp for small-pox convalescents
at Darenth Asylum," says Dr. MacCombie, "it was arranged that