The planning of fever hospitals and disinfecting and cleansing stations.
- Freeman, Albert C.
- Date:
- [1909]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The planning of fever hospitals and disinfecting and cleansing stations. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![to spread from the fust case, or cases, will already have been done, and the hami cannot be repaired. Then, by carrying out works of extension to existing hospitals the workmen are surrounded with danger. We instance the case of one of the Metropolitan Asylums Board's hospitals for smallpox during the past epidemic of this disease. Many workmen employed in the work of extension contracted the disease by being within the danger zone, and many died. Hospital accommodation for infectious diseases is required more particularly in towns than it is in rural districts ; still some provision should be made for the most isolated and outlying villages. Where good roads and suitable arrange- ments for the conveyance of the sick have been provided, the best contingence for small populations is by the provision of a hospital accessible from several villages. Such a building could be planned with accommodation for four or more cases of infectious cUsease, and be fairly isolated. For a town the hospital provision should consist of wards in one or more pavilions, with space enough for the erection of other blocks, temporary or permanent. Considerations of ultimate economy make it wise to have permanent build- ings sufficient for somewhat more than the average neces- sities of the situation, so that recourse to temporary additions may not be demanded. In all cases it is advisable to make the administrative offices somewhat in excess of the imme- diate requirements, and so serve, when occasions arise, the wants of temporary or permanent extensions. In the case of infectious hospitals the ratio given by Mr. \( Netten Radchffe, as desirable, was about twenty beds for a population of 25,000. In twenty-seven important towns, having a population of nearh^ 4,500,000, there are twenty infectious beds to each 29,000 persons. At the present time London has about 10,216 beds in the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asyhrms Board. Some authorities advocate accommodation for infectious cases in the proportion of ten beds per 10,000 of population, with arrangements to admit of three different infections in both sexes. With regard to the number of beds for which an infectious disease hospital should be designed, opinion of ex])erts differ. The large towns necessitate provision of a large mimber of beds. Whether it is a wise plan to place a large number of acute infectious cases on one site, or divide the iiumber into two institutions, is a debatable point. Mr. T. W. Aldwinckle,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21360169_0021.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
