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(8). " Subject, therefore, to what may be expected from the above or other
preventive measures, we think it would be advisable that there should be sites
and buildings which could without difficulty be made capable of receiving 3,000
fever patients, and 2,100—or by special exertion 2,700—small-pox patients.
(9). " Of the 3,000 fever cases, those in the earlier stage —probably about
half—should be provided for in the near neighbourhood of London ; the other
half—the convalescents—in two or three country hospitals.
(10). " The existing hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board 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
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.
(11). " Of the 2,100 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.
(12). " The remainder, being the severe cases, during their acute stage, must
be provided for in or within easy reach of London.
(13). " 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 smallpox
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 because 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 infection of the
rest of London is poured in upon them.
(14). " It is evidently of paramount importance that the areas of the smallpox
wards as well as their administration should be rigorously separated from
those of the fever hospitals, and further, that their construction should be such
as to reduce within the smallest limits the chance of spreading infection. We
fully believe that contrivances for this purpose might be devised, and we again
call special attention to the evidence on this head which has been furnished to
us by Dr. Burdon Sanderson.