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51
That the system now in vogue has been attended with the
happiest results, in reducing the amount of infectious disease in
the Metropolis, and has thus proved a great boon to all classes
of the community, is now universally admitted, and your Yestry
are entitled to no mean share of the credit due to those by
whose instrumeptality the beneficient scheme has been brought
to perfection.
The Ambulance Committee commence their report with a congratulatory
reference to the freedom from accident to any patient,
notwithstanding the severe frosts and dense fogs experienced
during the last six weeks of the year.
Land Service.—The total number of fever patients removed
was 8235, a considerably larger number than in any previous year,
and within 268 of the combined numbers of fever and small-pox
patients removed in 1884, when the latter disease was epidemic in
the Metropolis—the high figure being due not to any exceptional
prevalence of disease, but rather to the increased favour in which
the Managers' hospitals are held, and to the assistance given by
the local sanitary authorities in connection with the working of
the Notification Act. The average daily removals in the first
six months were 15.97, and in the latter six months 29'66, as
compared with 8.48 and 23'01 respectively in 1889, and 15*4 and
12"8 respectively in 1888. The number of journeys made was
8524 : the average length of journey did not exceed the average—
3½ miles, although many patients from districts usually allocated
to the Western and Eastern Hospitals, were removed to the
North-western Hospital. Forty-eight persons, certified to be
suffering from small-pox, were removed from their homes, but in
26 cases only was the diagnosis confirmed. Under the provisions
of section 6 of the Poor Law Act, 1889, 125 persons suffering
from dangerous infectious disorders (including scarlet fever 36,
enteric fever 19, diphtheria 13, and small-pox 2) were conveyed
in the ambulances to other places than the hospitals of the
Managers, who received £40 1s. 6d. for this service, including