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7
The difficult question of finding a suitable site for the erection
of an efficient Disinfecting Establishment has for a long time
occupied the most anxious attention of the Sanitary Committee.
Various places have been visited, and other places suggested;
all of which have presented insuperable obstacles. The stone
yard, the closed burial ground of St. Mary's, the spare ground
of the workhouse, the open fields on the Paddington estate, a
corner of the cemetery at Willesden, the wharves on the canal
basin, and other situations have all had to be abandoned. A site
is at length offered, which will probably be fixed upon.
The working details of an efficient system of disinfection are
settled. The Committee have visited the apparatus now in use
in other places. My Report drawn up in November, 1869, has
in no way been disputed The essential features of the
recommendations consisted in a hot air chamber capable of
being heated to a temperature of 250° to 300° fahr., to be
used with or without disinfectants. A washing room and
drying closet adjoining, with a copper and wash tub are essential.
1 object to the woollen things, bedding, &c., sent one way to
be heated or disinfected, and the washing articles going in another
direction, perhaps to a laundress to disseminate the poison ; all
infected things ought to be taken to one establishment. Medical
and other gentlemen write to express their surprise that this
wealthy Parish has no fumigating or disinfecting building; and
from the numerous applications made at the Vestry Hall and at
my residence, it appears to indicate that such an establishment
would be partly if not wholly self-supporting.
At the early part of the outbreak of the Epidemic of Small
Pox in the Parish, in order to meet the request for early removal
and isolation of cases of Small Pox, and to obviate any difficulty
that might arise, and did arise, from the want of accommodation,
the Small Pox Hospitals being full, the Guardians of the Poor
opened spacious wards for the reception of patients at the Workhouse
Infirmary. The Vestry at the same time voted a sum for
the erection of a temporary Iron Hospital on the grounds of
the Workhouse, which is now used for small pox cases.
This prompt decision of the Vestry, has conferred a great
boon upon the parishioners, and has enabled me to remove
2 or 3 persons daily since the first outbreak, who would have
had some delay and difficulty to encounter in finding a place for
their reception.
In the Report to the Sanitary Committee, on January 5th,
I recommended temporary tent hospitals; and I still believe
that a suburban encampment of tents, wooden or iron huts,
is the proper way of treating the contagious maladies of our
large towns, whether fever, small pox, scarlet fever, &c. They