View report page

33
tions, mainly for the protection of the neighbourhood, we attach the highest
importance, and in the general interest we express a hope that means may be
taken to secure that the unprecedented mass of information which has already
accumulated, and is constantly increasing in the hands of the asylums'
authorities, may be so studied and methodized as to become available for the
advancement of medical science."
It is hardly necessary to remind senior members of your vestry
that many of the subjects dealt with in the above recommendation,
had from time to time been under the consideration of
your Yestry, which had in no uncertain tones expressed views
which have now received the high sanction of this important
Commission, having previously commended themselves to the
approval of the Sanitary Authorities in the Metropolis. As an
illustration, and for the information of members recently elected,
I may refer to the subjoined " Propositions," which were drawn
up for the use of your Vestry's delegates at a Conference of Metropolitan
Sanitary Authorities appointed to consider the question of
hospital accommodation for " non-pauper" cases. Having been
" approved as fairly representing the views of the Vestry, as
expressed at various times on the subject of the provision of
hospital accommodation for persons suffering from infectious
disease," the Propositions were communicated to the members
of the Conference (in July, 1878), together with a reprint of
that portion of my Annual Report for 1876, dealing with the
Hospital question, under the heading, " Hospital Accommodation
for the Non-Pauper Infectious Sick."*
THE PROPOSITIONS
were as follow, the figures in brackets referring to the Paragraphs
in the " Practical Recommendations" of the Commissioners,
treating of the same subjects :—
* This Report, with the •'Propositions,'' was exte, sively circulated, having been forwarded
to the Members of the Asylums Boards and the Metropolitan Board of Works, the Vestries and
District Boards of Works, the Medical Officers of Health, the Boards of Guardians, the Medical
and General Newspaper Press, &c., &c. The Report embodied views set out in my fifteenth
Report for 1876, and in my letter to the Asylums Board (March, 1877), dealing with the same
questions.