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Regulation 3 was necessary for the security of the Board
and its officers; Regulation 2 provides, so far as public officials
—Medical Officers of Health, Sanitary Inspectors, etc.—are
concerned, all the facilities that could be desired, and under this
regulation we are now enabled to remove patients withouttroubling
the Relieving Officer for his order, or the District
Medical Officer for his certificate.
The Metropolis is indebted, in no slight degree, to your
Vestry's action for the introduction of the new system of admission
adopted by the Board—a system which places London at
the head of all great cities in regard to facilities for isolating
infectious persons in hospitals; the hospitals themselves, and the
ambulance service by which the patients are transported, being
second to none, whether regard be had to the accommodation
provided or to the speed and comfort with which the sick are
removed.
MODE OF ADMISSION TO INFECTIOUS HOSPITALS.
The Asylums Board being a branch of Poor Law Administration,
legal admission to the Board's Hospitals was originally to
be obtained only through Poor Law agency, viz.: by the Order of
a Relieving Officer or the Master of a Workhouse, and upon the
certificate of a Poor Law Medical Officer. In 1875 I proposed
that, with a view to facilitate removal, the Relieving Officer
should be authorized to act upon the certificate of any registered
medical practitioner. Not until July, 1887, did the Local
Government Board give authoritative sanction to my views, viz.:
by the issue of an Order validating the certificate of any registered
practitioner as evidence of the infectious character of the
disease. At the present time there is no legal admission to the