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65
It is said that the same evidence of "graduated intensity"
has been observed in connection with the spread of small-pox
around the other hospitals; but I think it will be found that in
respect of some of them, if not all, the ground is covered with
houses up to the walls, and that the incidence of disease
diminishes rapidly from centre to periphery, being little, if at all,
marked at a distance at which in the district of Fulham Hospital
the incidence of infection begins to be felt, the intervening space
being, for the most part, unoccupied ground. Thus at Stockwell
we are told that "the sickness appears to have been
intensified within 200 yards of the hospital, but not
sensibly beyond that limit." Within that limit of Fulham
Hospital there are no houses in Kensington, and there was
little sickness in the houses in Fulham. Mr. Archer Farr, late
Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth, however, a supporter
of the aerial theory of infection, finds no difficulty in the
spread of disease over far wider open spaces. He believes,
moreover, that a high brick wall—level with the roof of a
single storey hospital—would be a far more efficacious protection
to a district than an open space. Dr. Bristowe, Medical
Officer of Health for Camberwell, on the other hand, recognises
the value of open isolating spaces around the hospitals,
and thinks 100 yards interval adequate for the protection of
the surrounding neighbourhood. Dr. Tripe, Medical Officer
of Health for Hackney, to a certain extent supports the
theory of concentration of poison, and aerial dissemination,
having suspicion that infection has spread to a distance of
110 yards when more than 50 patients have been in Homerton
Hospital at one time; but he has no ground for suspecting the
aerial dissemination of infection at 200 yards however overcrowded
the hospital may have been. Even Mr. Pearson Hill,
so well known in connection with the Hainpstead Hospital case,
appears to be of opinion that infection does not spread further
than 300 yards from the hospital. By way of comment on
Mr. Farr's views, I may state that at the London
Small-pox Hospital at Highgate, patients are never put