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“ carried in all weathers and throughout all seasons of the year,
and to a great extent during the hours of darkness, without
detriment to the patients, and without accident or mishap to any
person whatsoever.” In their second annual report, for 1886, the
Ambulance Committee again refer with justifiable satisfaction to
the “ entire freedom from casualty involving personal injury, with
which the transport of patients, both by land and water, has been
accomplished.” In consequence of the cessation of the smallpox
epidemic the number of patients removed during the year fell
to 2,478, “ a figure which may be taken as an approximate indication
of the work likely to be required, under present conditions,
in any year when small-pox is not prevalent in the metropolis.”
RIVER AMBULANCE SERVICE.
The Managers possess in their three Ambulance steamers, Red
Cross, Maltese Cross and Albert Victor, together with the steam
pinnace Swallow and the steam launch Marguerite, a fleet
equal to all probable demands. The demands, however, as indicated
by number of admissions, are very unequal at different
periods of the year. Thus the Ambulance Committee inform us
that on the first day of January there were only 351 patients in
the Managers' Hospitals : so that on the 30th of that month the
North-Western Hospital was closed. The number of admissions
continuing at. a low rate during the first half of the year, the
Managers were induced, on the 31st July, to stop the admission
of patients to the South-Western Hospital, thus concentrating
the whole of the Fever patients in the Eastern, South-Eastern,
and Western Hospitals. In August, however, " the admissions
began to increase at an alarmingly rapid rate, the total number of
patients rising from 257 in July to 394 in August, 513 in
September, 638 in October, 734 in November, and culminating
with 742 on the 1st December, after which date to the end of the
year the number declined." The Managers authorised the Committee,
in October, to make additional provision for Fever patients
by re-opening the North-Western or the South-Western Hospital, if
necessary, but the Committee, anticipating that the highest