Report on recent prevalence of erysipelas in the wards, 1874 / The Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.

  • Radcliffe Infirmary
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on recent prevalence of erysipelas in the wards, 1874 / The Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ( -7 ) sures^ and involves the least disturbance of tlie ordi]iary ward regulations. For example, to bring the different nurses of the Infirmary successively into relations with the Accident Ward or other ward, at times when erysi- pelas or other traumatic infections are being treated in it, and to maintain the free communication by the different attendants and officials between the various wards, seems to me indefensible. Obviously, isolation of the cases of traumatic infection as they occur, would involve less inconvenient disturbance of the ordinary arrangements of the Infirmary, and besides being more effectual as a means of preventing trans- mitted mischief, it would obviate almost altogether a diminution of the number of available beds. Further, in the interest of the patient, it is desirable that each case of traumatic infection should have larger bed-space given to it than even the Accident Ward affords, except by diminishing the number of beds in it. In no class of diseases is abundant ventilation more necessary than in the traumatic infections, and no class so readily responds to the beneficial influence of free change of the air about the patient. It is matter of experience that in ordinary infectious diseases such freedom of ventilation as is desirable cannot certainly be obtained in permanent buildings if each occupied bed have less than 2,000 cubic feet of air-space, and 144 square feet of floor-space, with correspondingly large facilities for ingress and egress of air. What is true of ordinary current infections, is true also, according to my experience, of traumatic infections; and I am of opinion that until the measures which are held advisable for the limitation of ordinary current infections are stringently applied to traumatic infections, there can be no reasonable hope of their being brought under such control as should be aimed at in hospitals. 6. In all the wards, with the exception of the Acci- dent Ward, the liability to relative overcrowding is