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9
This table shows a considerable reduction in the number of
Hackney cases and of the total number brought into and taken
from the Homerton Hospital in 1884-5, as compared with
1883-4, but it also shows the numerous cases treated in the
Hospital during the year, although the number under treatment
at one time was comparatively small. I have already
pointed out the excess of cases in the quarter and half-mile
radii of the Hospital, and the conclusions as to the injuriousness
of the Hospital at which I arrived. These conclusions have
been corroborated by the report published by Mr. Shirley
Murphy, the late Medical Officer of Health to St. Pancras,
as to the effect on the health of the inhabitants of that Parish,
caused by the presence of the Hampstead and Highgate Smallpox
Hospitals, of which I append a summary.
Mr. Murphy states that the Hampstead Hospital was
closed for Small-pox cases in 1880-3, but was opened in May,
1884, for a limited number of cases, with the following results.
In the four years when this Hospital was closed, the houses in
the special area of one mile round, were attacked less than
those in the remainder of the Parish; but in 1884, when the
Hospital was reopened, the special area suffered three times as
much as the rest of the Parish. That during the year when
the Hospital was closed against Small-pox, the houses in the
radius nearest to the Hospital did not suffer in a greater ratio
than the others; but the reverse occurred when the Hospital
was opened, as the largest proportion of attacks to houses
occurred in the half-mile radius next the Hospital, in the
proportion of 2 to 1 in the half and three-quarter mile radii,
and of 5 to 1 in those situated in the space between the threequarter
and one mile radii. Mr. Murphy also investigated
the incidence of the disease around the Highgate Small-pox
Hospital, with similar results, except that the number of cases
was greater in the three-quarter and one mile radii, than in the
houses between the half and three-quarter mile radii. This