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51
All inside communications with drains and sewers must be severed,
uncleanly premises must be limewashed, and overcrowding abated.
I strongly recommend that immediate steps should be
taken to make a house-to-house visitation over the whole of the
parish: three Assistant Inspectors should be temporarily appointed,
to devote themselves exclusively to this particular duty under
the supervision of your present officers.
The Managers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board are now
arranging with existing Hospital authorities for such accommodation
as can be spared ; and I understand that 150 beds have
been secured in the London Hospital for Cholera cases. No new
Hospitals will be provided by the Board ; so that each Sanitary
Authority will have to make its own arrangements in the event of
an extensive outbreak.
I advise that a site be secured upon which we could, if
necessary, erect an Iron Hospital. The paddock opposite the
Bethnal Green Museum seems to me the most suitable spot, and
the Poor's Lands Trustees should be approached with a view to
obtain their permission to use the ground in the event of such a
course becoming necessary. An Iron Hospital to accommodate
twenty patients would cost about £500. Suitable ambulances are
being provided by the Asylums Board ; but it must be borne in
mind that Cholera is a peculiar disease, it rapidly prostrates those
attacked ; they bear removal very badly, and constantly die from
cold in transit. We must, therefore, be prepared to treat most of
the cases at home, and instead of moving the patient from his
house must arrange to remove the healthy persons away from the
infected spot. For this purpose Refuges will have to be provided,
and I suggest that the Guinness Trustees should be requested
to place one or two blocks of their new buildings at our disposal
for this purpose.
Should Cholera break out in London, the diseases prevention
clauses of the Public Health (London) Act will certainly be put
in operation. Dispensaries will have to be instituted, and a staff