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41
HOSPITAL PROVISION FOR DIPHTHERIA.
Reference was made above to the fact that nine of the 40
deaths from diphtheria took place at public institutions, usually
general Hospitals. The cases had been removed to the hospitals in
question, simply because the Managers of the Asylums Board
are not authorised by the Order of the Local Government
Board to admit persons suffering from this disease. The
Managers being willing to receive such cases, and applications
for their admission having been made to them from time to
time, they put themselves into communication with the Local
Government Board on the subject, in 1886. The Board,
doubting their power under the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867,
to authorise the Managers to admit cases of diphtheria, consulted
the Royal College of Physicians with regard to the
question, Whether persons suffering from diphtheria can be
regarded as patients suffering from "fever" within the
moaning of section 69 of the Metropolitan Poor Law Act, 1867 ?
The opinion of the President of the College, Sir William
Jenner, was given in the following terms:—
"If the words of the Act had been 'for patients suffering from fever,' I
should most certainly have considered Diphtheria to be included
under the term 'Fever,' but the separation of Small-pox from
Fevers seems to signify that the word 'Fever' was intended to
include only fevers of a special type, those cases, that is to say, to
which the word 'Fever' is specially applied, as Scarlet fever,
Typhus fever, and Typhoid fever."
In these circumstances it appeared to the Local Government
Board to be desirable that, if cases of Diphtheria were to be
admitted to the Fever Hospitals of the Managers, there should
be express legislation for the purpose, and the Board stated that
the question whether legislation on the subject should be proposed
would receive their consideration. After waiting eighteen months
the Managers have recently resolved to direct the attention of
the Board again to the subject. That the promised consideration
may result in necessary legislation, is much to be desired, it
D