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36. Hospital Accommodation.— Many of the cases were
unable to be removed to Hospital for several days after
notification, on account of want of accommodation. The
accommodation at the South-Eastern Hospital was soon exhausted,
and cases were taken to the more distant Fever
Hospitals. Arrangements were also made with the London,
Guy's, and other general Hospitals to receive patients. It is
certainly undesirable to move an Enteric case, after the first
week, so long a journey as was required to reach these
Hospitals ; but the result does not appear to have been so
unfavourable to recovery as I anticipated.
It is hardly creditable that London should be so deficient in
accommodation for fever cases, that, at a time when very little
fever prevailed over the great bulk of the Metropolis, a small
localized outbreak could not be satisfactorily dealt with.
37. District Nurses.—Great and valuable assistance was
rendered by the nurses of the Woolwich District Nursing
Association in nursing cases before they went to Hospital,
as well as those who remained at home all through their
illness.
38. Infectiousness.—The great importance of Hospital
treatment for all who cannot afford to have a trained nurse
in continued and exclusive attendance on the patient is shown
by the number of cases which appeared to have been transmitted
from the first patient to another in the same house,
viz.:—six at least. A case attended by myself is instructive
from this point of view. Mrs. R--, living with her husband
(a carpenter) and baby in three very comfortable and wellfurnished
rooms, in a well-drained and in every way sanitary
house, caught the fever by drinking the Princes Road milk
when calling at her mother's. Her own house had a different