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endeavoured to negotiate arrangements with the governing bodies
of general hospitals, and with the several Boards of Guardians, to
secure whatever accommodation in the hospitals, the workhouses
and the infirmaries, could be made available either for the reception
of patients in the infected districts, or for the accommodation
of the ordinary inmates of such establishments, who could be
transferred to cholera-free districts, in order to provide room for
the sick in the vacated buildings in cholera-stricken districts.
Many of the Boards of Guardians, and of the governing
bodies of voluntary hospitals, signified their willingness to cooperate
with the Managers in making the needful provision oi
hospital accommodation: the metropolis, therefore, would have
been found better prepared than in any previous epidemic had
cholera unhappily reached our shores, and the same observation
holds good now.
The design in the proposed arrangements was to constitute the
Managers a first line of defence, only, for instant action on the
appearance of Cholera; for it lias been intimated that the
Managers would not undertake the exclusive provision of hospitals,
and the Local Government Board have clearly laid it down that
the course the Managers were prepared with their sanction to
adopt in 1883, would in 110 way absolve the Sanitary Authorities
from the duty imposed on them by the Diseases Prevention
Act, 1855, should it become necessary by "Order" to
put in force the provisions of tbat Act. In other words should
Cholera appear the Vestries and District Boards will have to
provide hospitals for the sick in their several districts, as well as
places of refuge for the healthy inmates of infected houses—when
the sick in them cannot be removed to hospital, whether from
the severity of the illness, or owing to the want of accommodation
within one mile, which is held to be the furthest distance to which
a cholera patient can be properly transported. The regulations
issued by the Board in 1866, it may be remembered, imposed on
the Vestries, as "losal authorities," the duty of making arrangements
for the prevention and treatment of the disease, including
the medical visitation of poorer houses, for the purpose of