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57
It may be here mentioned that the Medical Officers of
Health, who have no object to serve apart from the preservation
of public health, are unanimous in their views on this
question. The latest expression of their views is contained in a
report by the Council of the Society of Medical Officers of
Health (November, 1886), wherein it is maintained that—
"Every possible facility should be afforded for the admission to the
hospitals of the infectious sick, and that as no attempt has been made to
define 'non-pauper' from other cases (presumably owing to the difficulty
attending any such definition), and as dangerous delays would inevitably
result from conflict of opinion between poor-law and sanitary authorities, as
to the status of candidates for admission to the hospitals, the wiser and
better course would be, some arrangement whereby all rate-supported
hospitals should be freely open, without payment, to all classes of the
community, without distinction; that orders for admission should be
given by Medical Officers of Health as well as by Relieving Officers; that the
certificate of any registered medical practitioner should be accepted as
evidence of the infectious character of an illness and of the patient's fitness
for removal, and that all charges incurred in the maintenance of the hospitals
should be defrayed out of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, until such
time as the hospitals themselves shall have been transferred to a properly
constituted central sanitary authority."
The Local Government Board took no definite action with
reference to the Managers' communication referring the
question, as raised by section 15 of the Poor Law Act, 1879,
to their disposal; but the Managers themselves, March 6th,
1887, decided "that application be made to the Local Government
Board for, or to obtain, authority for the Managers to
remove all persons suffering from fever or small-pox whose
removal shall be applied for by duly qualified (registered)
medical practitioners" —a new departure which, if carried into
effect, will, it may be hoped, involve the concession of free treatment
of the sick, for which I have been contending now for
many years.
Here it may be explained, that the conditions which until
recently regulated the admission of patients at the various infectious
hospitals under the Managers' control are specified in the
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