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practice the Central Hospital Authority for London in regard
to infectious diseases, and right well do they discharge the duties
of the position. No authoritative statement of their work, year
by year, is published, and it again affords me satisfaction to be
the medium for conveying the requisite information, which will
involve frequent reference to the views and proceedings of your
Vestry and other Sanitary Authorities.
THE FUTURE OF THE METROPOLITAN ASYLUMS
BOARD.
At a meeting of the Managers in October, Dr. J. H.
Bridges, Poor Law Inspector, expressed his satisfaction that the
Board was "working in the direction of what he hoped it would
become, viz., the Hospital-providing Authority for all poor
people of London not paupers." This sentiment was received
with applause, a fact which must be taken to mark a
further advance by the Board in the direction of that
goal to which I have for many years urged the Managers
to aspire. It is not to be supposed that Dr. Bridges was, in
the above utterance, expressing his merely personal predilections.
He spoke, doubtless, with a full sense of official responsibility,
and we may conclude that the Board which he represents is
no dissatisfied spectator of the process of evolution by which
the Asylums Board is being transformed into a Central
Authority, acting for the whole Metropolis, to provide, "in a
comprehensive and systematic manner," hospital accommodation
for all classes in need of isolation. The subject is not a
new one. It was carefully considered by the Managers
themselves in February, 1877, when they took counsel with
the Sanitary Authorities and with the Medical Officers of Health.
Expressing "the belief that adequate provision for the isolation
and treatment of epidemic diseases in the Metropolis'' did not
exist, the Managers arrived at the following conclusions:—
(a) "That such provision could be best made in a comprehensive and
systematic manner by one Central Authority acting for the whole Metropolis,
not only for pauper patients, but for other classes desirous of Hospital
accommodation,