Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Fulham]
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the Hospital (there were 17 in at the time of the motion), and
you paid the costs of the motion. The action was taken on
merely technical grounds as no possible injury could have been
caused by the presence of these tents. The end of Imperial
Road never having been used, being no more than an isolated
piece of ground on the banks of the Thames.
In consideration that the epidemic might still further increase
your Committee passed a resolution to erect, if necessary, a
temporary Hospital on the Little Wormwood Scrubbs. Directly
your intention became known, an interlocutory injunction was
applied for to the Court? of Chancery, by the Rev. Mr. Robinson
and others, to restrain you from carrying out the proposal. Your
Board opposed the motion which was refused by the Master of
the Rolls, who at the same time expressed his opinion greatly
in favour of the action you had taken. The epidemic having
begun to decrease, it was not necessary to erect the hospital and
the case eventually terminated by each side paying its own costs.
It is worth recording, that on the 29th of April last year, there
were, in other districts of the metropolis, 1,500 cases of small-pox
left at home, spreading the disease without proper isolation,
owing to the fact that there were no vacant beds at any of the
Small-pox Hospitals, while in the Fulham district there was not,
during the whole course of the epidemic, one single case that
was not properly isolated owing to the want of Hospital accommodation.
Mr. Dodson, M.P., President of the Local Government
Board, himself visited the Tent Hospital which you erected. He
expressed his opinion that the arrangements were admirable,
and that great credit was due for the course that had been
adopted. He afterwards stated in the House of Commons that
he regretted the apathy of the other Sanitary Authorities of the
Metropolis in not providing Hospitals for the isolation of the
large number of persons suffering from small-pox, who had
been left at home to spread the disease.
Fulham Small-pox Hospital.
On December the 31st, 1880, there were but 15 cases of smallpox
at the Metropolitan Asylum Small-pox Hospital. Altogether
last year there were 1,952 admissions from 22 Unions,
1,790 were acute cases, 162 were convalescents from other
hospitals, 38 of the cases admitted were not small-pox ; the
number of admissions of persons suffering from small-pox was
therefore 1,752. During the month of April 355 applications made
by telegram were refused, owing to the fact that all of the