View report page

201
improvements, moreover, have been effected in Public Health
administration with respect to infectious diseases; by the
adoption of the system of compulsory notification, and by the
freeing of the hospitals erected by the Metropolitan Asylums
Board under the provisions of the Metropolitan Poor Act,
1867. The Board itself, originally concerned only in Poor
Law administration, has in effect become, with respect to
infectious diseases, the Hospital Authority, and the Ambulance
Authority, by iand and water, for the entire Metropolis. The
hospitals, intended originally for the reception of persons in
receipt of poor-law relief only, now admit all applicants; the
stigma of pauperism, moreover, having been removed by an
Act introduced by a former Member for this Borough. In
1871, the infectious sick person could not be admitted to
hospital without the order of a Relieving Officer, or the
Master of a Workhouse on a certificate signed by a Poorlaw
Medical Officer. But, one by one, every barrier has been
broken down, and now a Medical Officer of Health, or a
Sanitary Inspector, or a registered medical practitioner, can
obtain the immediate admittance of a patient, conveyed in the
Board's ambulance, and attended by a nurse, without any
formality beyond an application and a medical certificate,"
which, I may now add, may be the notification certificate.
"Persons moreover suffering from diphtheria are now received,
and a Convalescent Hospital for these and for fever patients,
has been provided at Winchmore Hill. Small-pox patients
are removed to the Hospital Ships at Long Reach, and a
Convalescent Hospital has been provided for their use at
Darenth. The benefits accruing from the removal of smallpox
patients are plainly visible in the extraordinary immunity
London has enjoyed, of late years, from this loathsome disease,
the total deaths from which in the last six years, amoiig a
population exceeding four millions, were only 55. The mortality
from scarlet fever and enteric fever has been largely and
continuously reduced, in no small measure as the result of the
extended use made of the hospitals. London is to some