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addressed to the Clerk to the Board, July 10, 1884. I may
further mention, here, that I had sent to the Clerk the letter of
the Manager, on whose authority, and at whose request, I subsequently
issued my circular letter to medical practitioners in July,
1884, so as to obtain "official confirmation" of its "good
tidings," that cases would be admitted on the direct application of
medical practitioners, with the result above stated.
The Manager, my authority, was a Member of the Ambulance
Committee, and I naturally supposed that he was acting upon
direct knowledge of the proceedings of the Committee, but he
has quite lately told me that his information was obtained from
Mr. Freethy, the (late) Clerk to the Committee, and, still more
recently, that the decision to admit patients on the application of
medical practitioners was that of the (late) Chairman of the Committee,
and not the formal act of the Committee as a body. Be
this as it may, the "decision" has been acted on for nearly twelve
months.* How this came to pass it is for the Board to ascertain
and to explain. For the rest, I have only to observe, that if the
Board of Managers will no longer allow patients to be admitted
upon the application of medical practitioners, they should say so,
and then I could have no difficulty in "withdrawing my circular
letter of July 22, 1884," as requested by the General Purposes
Committee. But, I repeat, the withdrawal of the letter must, in
simple justice to myself, be accompanied by the publication of the
entire correspondence, given above in abstract, for it would show, what
I am entitled to have demonstrated, that in sending out that letter
I did not act without what appeared to be adequate authority nor
without proper caution.
Interruption of Education at Elementary Schools
resulting from the prevalence of infectious disease.
—It is the practice at Board and other elementary schools to
refuse admission to children from houses where infectious disease
* On the day when the above words were written, a case of small-pox was
removed to hospital on the application (by telegraph) of a private medical
practitioner in Kensington.