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63
as Dr. Gwynn puts it, "there is no special significance in numbers"
as regards the danger to a district from a small-pox hospital in
its midst, and a single case may be the cause of small-pcx to
susceptible persons within the "striking distance" of atmospherically
carried contagium; a view which, if it be correct, would
seem to place hospitals and private houses, where small-pox is
treated, pretty much on a level. But whether the aerial theory be
true or not, it is the fact that there was more small-pox in
Hackney and Hampstead in 1884 than in previous years when
the number of patients treated in the Eastern and North-Western
Hospitals respectively was far greater. Notably was this the case
in regard to Hampstead, for the patients under treatment in the
North-Western Hospital, never more than 30 at one time in 1884,
were not a tithe of the number treated at one time in the hospital
during former epidemics, and yet the cases in the parish were
more numerous than ever.*
I do not propose, in the present report, to re-open this important
question with a view to dealing with it exhaustively, but
I shall venture to repeat the substance of the information which
I laid before the Society of Medical Officers of Health, at the
recent discussion, both with regard to the incidence of small-pox
on the "special area" of the Western (Fulham) Hospital, and
on the subject generally, as illustrated by the statistics published
from time to time in the minutes of the Asylums Board.
The Western Hospital, it will be remembered, is situated outside
the western boundary of Kensington, near the West Brompton
Station. It lies between the Lillie Bridge Grounds (north), the
London Athletic Club Grounds (south), open land in Fulham (west),
and is separated from inhabited Kensington by the Brompton
Cemetery on the east. The "Special Area" is represented by a circle
with a radius of one mile, having the hospital for its centre; and,
for convenience, Mr. Power divides it into a smaller central circle,
* In proportion to population, St. George's-in-the-East had most cases of
small-pox in 1884. There is no hospital in that Parish ; hut there is a hospital
in the Parish (Hampstead) which followed St. George's in the proportional
number of cases, and there is a hospital in the Union (Fulham) which had the
Rmallest proportional number of cases.