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pay. Even had this been the case, and I have shown that it
is not, sanitarians, who know the terrible consequences that
so often result from the home-treatment of infectious diseases
when the sick cannot be isolated, would have been ready to
justify a sacrifice in money rather than imperil life. It was
more difficult to satisfy the representatives of the ratepayers—
those who hold the strings of the public purse—of the good
policy of such a course, but the facts and figures I submitted
to the Conference brought conviction, and it was resolved
unanimously, "that payment for the assistance given in
hospitals to persons removed thereto for isolation, by the
Sanitary or the Poor Law Authority, should not be enforced,"
and, "that the giving of such assistance should not entail
on the recipient the loss of any social or political status."
By the passing of the Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) Act,
1883, relief in the hospitals has been depauperised. The
Hospitals Commission, moreover, recommended, (in 1882),
that "it is desirable in the public interest to attract to the
hospitals, even by the bribe of gratuitous treatment, all who
will go thither;" thus completely justifying the views for
which I have so long contended.
The above enlightened step for promoting the removal of infectious
cases, as a means of protecting the community,
is not the only one for which we are indebted to the Guardians.
The Asylum Board Hospitals, as is well known, are poor
law institutions, although, as mentioned above, admittance
into them no longer pauperises the recipients of
assistance, few of the patients, moreover, being of the pauper
class.
For some years, as I have before stated, I have contended
that the medical certificate of a duly registered practitioner
should be accepted as evidence of the nature of an infectious
disease, (small pox, scarlet fever, &c.), in the case of a patient
proposed to be removed to an asylum-hospital, and that the
medical officer of health should be authorized to make the
necessary "order " for the reception of the patient. In the