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86
bowel complaints of any kind, and that the only cause of
danger was the introduction of the disease by persons
arriving from an infected place.
Under these circumstances the Committee felt that they
could not lay down any precise line of action at that period
beyond being generally prepared to deal with cases which
might come under notice in such a manner as to prevent the
spread of the disease. They therefore confined their
attention to measures of precaution.
These included directions for the Committee to be
specially convened at very short notice should occasion
require, upon the understanding that Sab-Committees
should then be appointed; each Sub-Committee to keep a
very limited area under observation and to see that any
Regulations of the Local Government Board and directions
of the Sanitary Committee were carried into effect.
As regarded hospital accommodation the Committee were
in hopes that the thirty beds in the Workhouse, Poland
Street, which the Guardians of the Westminster Union were
prepared to set apart for Cholera cases, would be sufficient
for the purpose. With regard to out-treatment the Medical
Officer of Health had been authorised to establish a
dispensary at 6, Dufour's Place, which is in the centre of
the poorer part of the Parish, on the first appearance of
anything approaching an epidemic, for a gratuitous supply
of medicine, &c., and to engage qualified assistants both
for the dispensary and for visiting the sick in their homes.
It was also proposed to utilise, to some extent, the local
Dispensaries in a similar manner. The contract which
was entered into early in the year, for the supply of