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49
venting the spread of disease." A detailed exposition of my
views is contained in my Annual Report for 1876-7 (at pp.
14-17). These views found little favour eleven years ago, hut
gradually Medical Officers of Health and Local Sanitary
Authorities alike have adopted them, and I venture to predict
that ere long they will be formally accepted by the Managers,
with the sanction of the Local Government Board, and that the
Asylums Board will become de jure what it is de facto, the
Authority for providing free hospitals for all infectious persons
in need of isolation.
THE VESTRIES AND THE HOSPITAL QUESTION.
When the Chairman of the Asylums Board proposed in the
autumn to open the Northern Hospital, scarlet fever being
epidemic, reference was made, not for the first time, to the
alleged "laches'' of the Sanitary Authorities, who were
blamed for not having provided Hospitals for "non-paupers."
Some of the Managers indeed were for rejecting these cases,
upon "economical" grounds, and under the impression that
exclusion of them would put an end to the difficulty created,
through want of accommodation, which arose solely from the
refusal, by a temporary majority of the Board, to utilize an
actually existing hospital. The old complaint was made that
people who could pay did not pay for their treatment, it being
forgotten, as usual, that if payment were enforced many of the
patients would not go to hospital, but, by being kept at home,
would spread disease to the common danger. Among Sanitary
Authorities, from those at the Local Government Board downwards,
there is now little question regarding the wisdom of free
hospital treatment. The Times (December 6) in a leader
referring to the epidemic, and dealing generally with the question
of admission of all classes who desire to participate in the benefits
afforded by the hospitals, expressed in felicitous terms views
identical with those advocated by me any time these dozen
years. The Hospitals are supported by and for the benefit