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19
The Urban District Council then, having regard to the
proximity of Barnes to the Metropolis, proceeded to take steps
to provide the district with the means of isolating cases that
might occur.
A very complete plan was devised for the reception of
patients in a temporary building on Sheen Common, but this
plan was successfully defeated by action which raised the question
of the legal right of the Council to erect such a building on the
Common.
But appeals had been made, without any success, to every
owner of land in any way suitable for the erection of such a
building, and it appeared therefore, for some time, likely that the
district would be withouc proper means of isolation in the event
of an outbreak.
Representations were then made to the Surrey County
Council of the urgent need of some such means, and on almost
the last day of the year it was announced that the Surrey County
Council had concluded an arrangement with the Joint Small Pox
Hospital Board for Croydon and Wimbledon, by which the latter
body bound themselves to "admit into their Hospital at Cheam, at
a weekly charge, cases of Small Pox occurring within the
administrative County of Surrey generally. This arrangement
is, for the present, satisfactory, but it is to be hoped that it
will shortly give place to another on broader lines.
In April, a medical man was prosecuted at the Court at
Mortlake for having failed to notify, in compliance with the Act,
the occurrence of a case of Typhoid Fever on which he was
attendant. As a matter of fact, the case was only notified, and
then irregularly, after the unfortunate termination by death of
the patient's prolonged illness.