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hospital, however small, must be a public danger, even at a
distance of 1000 feet and upwards ; " and that the attempt
to stay the plague would be all but hopeless under the
land-hospital system. In these circumstances, the very
cautious scheme of the Commission, which contemplates
the retention of some 30 or 40 acute cases in each of the
Town hospitals, could not be justified—still less, the compromise
of litigation, under the terms of which the Managers
are at liberty to receive into the Fulham Hospital as
many as 50 " severe or confluent " cases at one time.
In each epidemic of small-pox since 1877, when the hospital
was first used, there had been some cases in the "special
area " prior to the admission of any considerable number of
patients, as my monthly reports show. Curiously enough,
the disease was later in making its appearance in the special
area in 1881, when hospital cases accumulated more rapidly
than in any previous year. In the present year, when the
hospital cases have been fewer than ever before, the reverse,
as I shall show, has been the case.
I do not propose in the present report to enter in a controversial
spirit into the question of aerial infection, and I
have made the above remarks solely by way of introduction
to a statement of known facts with regard to small-pox prevalence
in the days prior to, and immediately succeeding,
the re-opening of the hospital, (May 17), with the view of
showing, that whatever may be the influence of small-pox
hospitals on surrounding districts, Fulham Hospital could
not have originated the Borough epidemic in 1884, inasmuch
as the disease had appeared in many streets before the hospital
was opened, and some three-score of cases had been
recorded while as yet there were not ten cases in the wards.
The cases recorded in Kensington in the twenty weeks
ended May 17, on which day the hospital was re-opened,
were 12, five north and seven south of Uxbridge-road.* In
*There were about as many cases in Chelsea, but none in Fulham, apparently,
prior to this date.