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34
General Purposes Committee, and at the meeting of your Vestry
held on the 3rd of October, it was resolved, upon the recommendation
of the Committee:—
" That application be made to the President of the Local Government
Board to bring in a Bill, in the forthcoming Autumn Session, to enable the
Asylums Board to admit to their hospitals persons suffering from Diphtheria ;
that the Asylums Board be informed of the step taken, and that the Sanitary
Authorities of the Metropolis be requested to support the Vestry's application."
In conformity with the above resolution, a letter was
addressed to the President (on the 4th October) as follows:—
" Sib,—I am directed by the "Vestry of Kensington to invite your
attention to the spread of diphtheria in certain portions of the Metropolis,
due, in large measure, as they believe, to the want of adequate hospital
accommodation for persons suffering from that disease and being in need of
isolation.
" The deficiency of accommodation appears mainly to arise from the
inability of the Local Government Board, without express legislation, to issue
an Order authorising the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board to
receive at their hospitals cases of diphtheria, under the provisions of the
Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867.
" The question whether such legislation should be proposed is understood
to be receiving the consideration of the Local Government Board.
" This being so, I am respectfully to refer to the anomalous fact that
although the Managers cannot admit paupers suffering from diphtheria with
an order of a Relieving Officer, they might, under the provisions of Section 15
of the Poor Law Act, 1879, admit non-paupers were they, with the approval
of the Local Government Board, to contract with a local authority for the
reception and maintenance in their hospitals of persons suffering from ' any
dangerous infectious disorder—a term wide enough to include diphtheria.
" The Vestry, taking note of the fact that Managers are willing to receive
these cases, are of opinion that it would be well were the above-mentioned
anomaly removed, being convinced that it would be for the public interest
that persons suffering from diphtheria should be admitted into the Managers'
Hospitals.
" They therefore hope that the Local Government Board may be able to
arrive at a decision that cases of diphtheria can properly be admitted to the