View report page

108
moreover, coming out of tlie pockets? of the ratepayers whether
it be paid by the one Authority or by the other.
Up to the present time (June) the proposed circular letter,
referred to in the proceedings of the Managers at the meeting on
February 17, has not been received. The delay is the result,
probably, of the difficulty in dealing with the subject, created by ten
months' practice of the new system of admitting patients on the
direct application of medical men, and without the previous
order of the Relieving Officer, to which I have already alluded.
I am led to this conclusion by a correspondence which I have had
with the Board, to which reference must now be made. I have
already stated that the new system of removals was initiated by
the Ambulance Committee in June, 1884.* At that date the
Asylums Board adopted new "Regulations for the removal of cases
of Small-pox and Fever by the Land and River Ambulances " prepared
by the said Committee. And although the Board was not
asked to sanction the new system of admitting patients—which,
in fact, they could not have done, having regard to the terms of
the Local Government Board's Order relating to the admission of
patients—it must be obvious, I think, that the Regulations were
framed to facilitate the new practice, and it can not be doubted
that the new practice was known to the Clerk to the Board, and to
the Managers, or many of them, individually. In any case it was
at the suggestion of one of the Managers that I addressed the
following letter to medical men in Kensington, in July, at which
time, moreover, I made known to my colleagues the Medical
Officers of Health also, what I described not quite correctly
perhaps as "the new departure by the Board."
•' Dear Sir,—I have good authority for stating that, with the view of
avoiding all unnecessary delay in the removal of cases of Small-pox and
Fever, the Metropolitan Asylums Board will admit any patient upon the
direct application of any registered Medical Practitioner, and without the
previous order of a Relieving Officer.
The application should be made by telegram, addressed to the Clerk
of the Ambulance Department, 37, Norfolk Street, Strand. Attendance is
* But on this point see page 99 et seq.