View report page

65
cation, the Chairman thought it would be difficult for the officials
to form a correct idea of what the numbers of scarlet fever cases
yet to come in might be. But with deference, I submitted (in
my tenth report, October 12, p. 111) that the difficulty would
be rather to predict the extent of the epidemic. The patients,
whether sent in by the Poor Law Authority or by the Sanitary
Authority, belong substantially to the same class, the variety
in mode of application being mainly a question of practice,
depending on substitution of one authority for another in
certain districts. Be this as it may, a state of affairs has now
been brought about which may well and reasonably satisfy all
who take an interest in the sanitary welfare of the Metropolis.
THE STATUS OF HOSPITAL PATIENTS.
On various occasions statements have been made by
Managers of the Asylums Board, Poor Law Guardians, and others,
to the effect that many patients enter the hospitals who are
able, and ought to be made, to pay for the relief afforded.
That now and again such cases may occur I am not concerned
to deny, but I am confident that the cases are fewer
than might be supposed from the general character of the
statements referred to. It is said, for instance, that
four-fifths of the patients (80 per cent.) are not "paupers,"
and some years back a statement was made that 90 per cent.
of the patients had not previously been in receipt of parochial
relief. This may be true, but it does not follow that the
patients were able to pay. Infectious disease is a serious calamity
iu any circumstances. Its occurrence frequently deprives the
bread-winner of work, and compels him, often against his
instincts, to allow his child to be removed to hospital, that he
may not lose the means of living for himself and family and
thus possibly become a veritable ''pauper." Relief in hospitals
no longer pauperises, otherwise it might truly be
said that a large proportion of the persons who make use of