Reports for the year 1891 of the statistical committee and the medical superintendents of the infectious hospitals and imbecile asylums, also of the ambulance & training ship "Exmouth" committees (6th year of issue) / Metropolitan Asylums Board.

  • Metropolitan Asylums Board (London, England). Statistical Committee.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports for the year 1891 of the statistical committee and the medical superintendents of the infectious hospitals and imbecile asylums, also of the ambulance & training ship "Exmouth" committees (6th year of issue) / Metropolitan Asylums Board. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (8.) Ambulance Work.—In the Report of the Ambulance Committee for the year 1891, which is entered on pp. 154 to 164, attention is called to one effect of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, which is to limit the scope of the powers of the Managers for the conveyance of persons suffering from dangerous infectious diseases to other places than the Managers’ Hospitals. It is now necessary, in order to extend the list of such diseases beyond those expressly named in the Act, for the London County Council to make a formal order to that effect. Such an order the Managers had to obtain during last year before they could remove persons suffering from influenza. These formalities, however, as the Ambulance Committee points out, “ entail delay, and delay at the commencement of an epidemic is “ apt to cause greater mischief than can be repaired by any subsequent “ effort.” The Ambulance Committee also add that it seems to them— A subject for regret that the Legislature were not prepared to take a bolder step in order to preserve from the taint of infection the public carriages of the Metropolis—which, being upholstered, are therefore incapable of efficient disinfection—by substituting for their use for persons suffering from all or any infectious diseases the ambulances of the Managers, which are constructed in a manner and of material which admit of absolute purification, and which, prior to the passing of the Act, could be used at the discretion of the Managers. The limitation before referred to practically results in the use of public cabs for the purpose. The Land and River Ambulance services were inspected in August by members of the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, who recorded their cc admiration of the perfect organisation, method, “ and order observable in all the details of the Ambulance service.” The Ambulance Committee remarks (p. 155), that for six years London has enjoyed practical immunity from smallpox, and that not¬ withstanding its increased activity during the past year the outbreaks of the disease were limited in their scope, and were effectually checked by the removal of the cases to the floating hospitals on the Thames at Long Reach. “ The continuance of this policy,” add the Ambulance Committee, “ of prompt removal and complete isolation is essential to “ the safety of the Metropolis, and especially while there is evidence “ that smallpox is still active in several of the large provincial towns.” Since the establishment of the Land Ambulance Service in 1881, 56,868 fever and smallpox patients have been removed from their homes to the various hospitals, and 13,176 recovered patients have been removed from the hospitals to their homes. From 1884 to the end of 1891, 4,954 smallpox patients had been transferred from the London hospitals to the Managers’ wharves on the river Thames, en route for
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