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17
A cottage hospital, containing a few beds, would not be an
expensive establishment, and would greatly tend to mitigate
suffering.
In some districts an establishment of this kind is made
in part self-supporting.
The 43rd section of the Act enables local Boards to encourage
the establishment of baths and washhouses.
In this large district no facilities for bathing exist, and in
some instances all the washing, (and in wet weather all the
drying), ot linen by the poor has to be done in their own
houses or rooms, and renders them uncomfortable and unwholesome.
Establishments of this kind might be made self-supporting,
or, if not, would be assisted by the subscriptions of the inhabitants;
and a disinfecting chamber might be connected
with the building.
Section '24th of the Act empowers the nuisance authority to
maintain carriages for the conveyance to the hospital or their
own homes persons suffering under any coutagious or infectious
disease.
The only vehicle in this district for the conveyance of
persona labouring under contagious disease is the property
of the Board of Guardians of the Lewisham Union, and I am
not aware whether this is always available for the removal of
sick persons.
But such a conveyance should be readily available at all
times, in order to prevent the infection of the public cabs and
railway carriages, which are at times used for such purposes;
and these are media for the spread of disease.
Although a large amount of most beneficial work has been
done as regards the sewerage of the district, and although the
greater part of this district is now well drained; still some
parts are without drainage; by which I mean that houses are
only drained into cesspools, which would require periodical
pumping in the clay portions of the district, or they would
overflow and deposit their decomposing contents upon the
adjacent land or into ditches; or in the gravel portions of the