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be attributed to dissemination or to personal communication,
alone or conjointly?
This question is so vital to the public-health interests of
the Metropolis, that one naturally desires to contribute, in
however slight a degree, to its solution. And first I would
remark that the amount of personal communication going
on between the hospital and the outside, not merely at
the period of Mr. Power's inquiry, but at all times,
was very great. Every nurse and ward servant was allowed
to go out once a day for two hours; the day nurses in
the evening, the night nurses in the forenoon, and this privilege
was largely used by them, the average number of women
leaving the hospital daily being eighteen.
I felt it my duty, in the early part of 1881. to call attention
to this excessive leave, as involving a possible danger to the
district; but the Chairman of the Hospital Committee informed
me that if "the limited opportunity the nurses now enjoy
of meeting their friends outside the hospital were restricted,"
they would not keep a single nurse : the regulations, he said
provided for a change of clothing, and bathing was encouraged ;
but I need hardly say how difficult it is to follow up a number
of young women, to see that regulations are carried out; and
as for bathing, if practised, I suspect it would not extend to
ablution, followed by disinfection, of the hair, a part exceedingly
likely to become the vehicle of infectious matter. I
ventured to make the suggestion, which the Hospitals Commission
subsequently repeated, that the nurses should be kept
strictly within the walls for a definite period, and then be
allowed a longer holiday, after all necessary precautions in the
way of change of clothing, bathing, &c., had been practised,
in such a manner as to preclude the possibility of infection
clinging to the person. I also suggested the desirability of
providing common sitting rooms, with games, books, &c.,
to amuse and occupy the nurses, &c., during their enforced
seclusion, a plan which afterwards was successfully carried
out at Darenth :but at Fulham, it was said, "nothing we