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41
spectively, at one time, in two houses at Notting Hill, in crowded
localities, produced no ill effect upon the neighbourhoods. So
much by way of parenthesis, as I have no intention of re-opening in
this Report the vexed question of the cause of spread of small-pox
in the vicinity of hospitals. Suffice it to say that Mr. Power's
opinion regarding aerial dissemination of contagium, without personal
communication, appears to have weighed more with the
Managers than with the Local Government Board, having regard
to the divergent views of the twyo authorities as to the future
provision of hospital accommodation for small-pox patients.
For whilst the Board strongly urge the use of the land
hospitals, at non-epidemic times, the Managers have resolved to
remove all cases to the Hospital Ships at Long Reach, " unless the
condition of the patient be such that the journey down river
Wuuld be dangerous to life, or prejudice the patient's chance of
recovery; " a resolve which finds additional justification in the fact
that, " except in the case of extreme West and South-West
parishes," (pending the completion of the West Wharf), " the
duration and the distance of the journey to the wharves, at which
the ambulance steamers receive patients for transit down the river,
are but little hi excess of the journey which would have to be
undertaken if the patients were conveyed to the land hospitals."
On this resolution the Managers have now acted for several
months and with success, for small-pox has been at low ebb in
the Metropolis, and with rare exceptions, of " severe " cases
temporarily admitted at the Eastern and South-Eastern hospitals,
patients have been removed, without difficulty or danger, to the
Ships, where, it is alleged, the results of treatment are more
satisfactory than in the land hospitals. The Managers, it may be
added, have recently transferred the charge of patients on the
ambulance steamers to the Hospital Ships Committee, whose
medical officers are responsible for the treatment of the cases from
the instant of embarcation, a course adopted with the view to
remove as far as possible all cause for objection by the sick and
their relatives, on the score of supposed increase of risk and
danger from removal down the river.
c