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attained a popularity certain to lead to increased use of them in
the future by people in need of isolation ; the fact being that the
strain was due in large degree to the greater proportion of the
sick removed to hospital as compared with previous years.
Evidence of this fact is furnished, as regards our own parish, by
the figures set out in the Table at page 33. The experience of
1887 accentuates the necessity for additional accommodation as
recommended by the Commission, and the matter should be
taken in hand while the temporary huts remain. The outlay in
erecting these huts was probably almost sufficient to defray the
cost of a brick hospital. But the "party of economy at the
Asylums Board are averse to building. They thought the
Northern Hospital unnecessary, and successfully opposed its
use for some weeks, after the necessity had become apparent
enough to other persons; and having qua this subject become
a majority at the Board in the autumn, they would have persisted
even longer in their opposition but for the pressure put
upon them by the Local Government Board, and the remonstrances
of the exponents of public opinion.
WESTERN (FULHAM) HOSPITAL.
At a Board meeting in February, 1888, the General Purposes
Committee were instructed to consider and report to the
Managers as to how far it may be practicable to increase the
accommodation for fever patients at the several Hospitals, and
at the meeting of the Managers on the 21st April, they submitted
a memorandum received from the Western Hospital
Committee, respecting the necessity of providing further
accommodation for fever patients at that Hospital—a course
which would involve the acquisition of additional land, available
to the north or the south of the site, as no further accommodation
can be provided on the existing site. The Hospital contains
at present only 252 beds, and ''the experience gained during
the late prevalence of scarlatina shows that it is not large
enough to receive all the cases arising in the districts allotted to
it, inasmuch as after the Hospital was filled, cases that should