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49
It is to be regretted that the work of the Board in connection
“with the treatment of persons suffering from infectious disease is
not better known. It is a very great work, and one of the
highest importance to the well-being of the inhabitants of this
great city, as those best know who, as Health Officers or otherwise,
are best acquainted with it. Here is just one fact, viz:—
that at the close of 1885 the River Ambulance Service had conveyed,
in 23 months, no fewer than 11,060 small-pox patients to
the Hospital Ships—the greatest number in one day being 104
—irrespective of 10,076 recovered persons who were brought back
to the London Wharves. We in London, perhaps, hardly think
enough of these things. Strangers are differently affected. It
is not long ago that a deputation, civic and medical, came from
Paris to study the hospital system of the Managers. The Paris
correspondent of the Standard subsequently stated that Dr.
Nicaise, a member of the deputation, in conversation with him,
expressed his judgment on the Darenth Camps and the Hospital
Ships, that " they were the realisation of a dream of perfection."
The success of these institutions is naturally gratifying to me,
the plan of removing small-pox patients out of London having
been adopted upon my advice (in 1881) during Mr. JDodson's
Presidency of the Local Government Board.
Reference to the great work done by the Asylums Board may
fitly be completed by stating that during the year 1886, there
were admitted at the several hospitals 2,298 patients, including
small-pox, 136, scarlet fever, 1,806, typhus fever, 8, and enteric
fever, 356. The numbers admitted in the previous year were
8,253, including the large total of 6,391 from small-pox. The
scarlet fever patients in 1885 were 1,394, typhus fever 54, and
enteric fever 226. The latest published statistics show for smallpox,
amongst the vaccinated, a case-mortality of 8 per cent., and
amongst the unvacciuated, 51 per cent. The rate in scarlet fever
in 1885 was 9.31; that of enteric fever 17'62.
The following Table supplies information of considerableinterest.