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diseases, upon a Metropolitan Fund, as compared with
that of contracts with individual Sanitary Authorities,
as proposed, under the provisions of the Poor Law Act,
1879," and suggested "the desirability of legislation
to give effect to such plan."
There was all the more ground for this request, seeing that
at the Conference of Sanitary Authorities held in the Town
Hall in March, 1881,—which was presided over by the late
Major-General Boileau, R.E., F.R.S.,—the following resolution
was unanimously adopted, some 30 out of the 39 Sanitary
Authorities being represented thereat, viz.:—
"That the admission into hospitals, for the purpose of isolation, of persons
suffering from infectious disease, and being without proper
lodging or accommodation, is eminently desirable in the interests of
the public and should be encouraged; that payment for the assistance
given in hospitals to such persons removed thereto for isolation, by
the Nuisance or the Poor-Law Authority, should not be enforced;
that the giving of such assistance should not entail on the recipients
the loss of any social or political status, and that the cost of hospital
treatment of such infective sick persons should be made a charge on
the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund."
This resolution was (on April 23, 1881) submitted to the
President of the Local Government Board by a deputation
comprising delegates of the Vestries and District Boards (not
one of these Authorities dissenting), supported by the Council
of the British Medical Association, the Society of Medical
Officers of Health, the Public Health Section of the Social
Science Association, and the National Health Society, General
Boileau being spokesman. Subsequently to the joint action of
the Vestries and District Boards above referred to, the views
which your Vestry had been the fust to expound, several years
previously, to the effect that admission to infectious disease
hospitals should not pauperise the sick, found expression in
section 7 of the Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) Act, 1883,
which, once and for ever, depauperised the relief given in the
Managers' Hospitals.