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danger of a general epidemic. Extensive outbreaks in the past
have been due, usually, to a polluted water supply, a danger
against which the Metropolis is better guarded than formerly,
but one against which it is impossible to obtain complete security
whilst the supply is obtained from rivers. As regards the
Metropolis, we were, probably, never so well prepared against
a danger the gravity of which no one pretends to undervalue;
for, as I have shown in former reports, should cholera threaten
to invade us, the Local Government Board would instantly call
into operation the several Diseases Prevention Acts. Thereupon,
a complete system of hospital accommodation would be
provided—by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in the first
instance—while the Local Authorities, Vestries and District
Boards, would be armed with power to provide subsidiary
hospitals, as well as refuges for the healthy, taken from infected
houses. By medical visitation of their several districts, moreover,
and by provision of medicine, &c., in cases of diarrhoea,
the Local Authorities would be enabled to do all that the
requirements of the emergency dictate, and so complete the
second line of defence for the security of our vast population.
METROPOLITAN ASYLUMS BOARD.
The work and proceedings of the Asylums Board, at all
times of importance to all concerned in sanitary administration
within the metropolis, acquired additional interest in 1887 by
reason of the steps taken by the Managers to make the Hospitals
more than ever a refuge for the infectious sick in need of
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isolation. Accommodation, as we shall see, has been provided, or
is in course of preparation, adequate to the needs of the population;
and, during the recent epidemic of scarlet fever, beds were
placed at the disposal of registered practitioners, as well as
sanitary officials and resident medical officers of General
Hospitals, whose applications for the admission of patients,
subject only to compliance with the Board's Regulations, were
invariably complied with The Board indeed have become in