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was erected and carried on with remarkable success in the
summer of 1881.
The Managers have also purchased the "Gore Farm
Estate," about 135 acres, in the immediate vicinity of
Darenth Asylum, and on a part of it they established,
in March 1884, a camp hospital, to meet a great
emergency, there having been a very considerable increase
in the number of small-pox cases in the eastern district of
the metropolis. But the Managers intend to make permanent
provision for convalescent small-pox cases on this
site, and they have matured arrangements for the erection
of a hospital, a step rendered necessary by the restrictions
imposed on them by the compromises already referred to,
in regard to the North Western and Western Hospitals,
and by the recommendation of the Commission that not
more than 30 to 40 small-pox cases should be treated at one
time in any hospital within the metropolitan area. During
the epidemic of 1881, the Managers had accommodation at
their disposal in the metropolis for 1,000 small-pox cases,
and the camp hospital at Darenth provided for about 650
cases; 1,650 beds in all, the maximum number occupied at
any one time in the course of that not very extraordinary
epidemic. The Managers as at present situated, and apart
from the camp, possess accommodation for 650 cases only,
viz.:—250 beds in hospitals on land, (fifty in each of the
five existing hospitals), and about 400 on shipboard, so that
there would be a deficiency to the extent of about 1,000 beds
in the event of an average epidemic.
To supply this deficiency, the Managers propose, with the
sanction of the Local Government Board, to erect a
hospital for 1,000 patients in ten groups of buildings, each
to afford accommodation for 100: six only of the groups
to be erected in the first instance, but with all the administrative
buildings necessary for the complete hospital. Each
of the groups will be subdivided into four wards of 25 beds
each, with a day room, &c., and infirmary accommodation