First report of the committee of management of the Stockwell Fever and Smallpox Hospitals, 1871-2.

  • Stockwell Smallpox Hospital
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First report of the committee of management of the Stockwell Fever and Smallpox Hospitals, 1871-2. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Managers, opened that Hospital on the 6th March for the reception of Smallpox cases. In a few days the latter Hospital rapidly filled, and on the 24th of March it was found necessary to further increase the accommodation by placing 80 additional beds in the day rooms. Although, during the month of April, some relief was afforded by the transmission of Convalescent Patients to the Islington Convalescent Hospital of the Managers, and to a Convalescent Home at Clapton, the rapidity with which the disease spread during this month in the Southern District, created such a demand upon the Hospitals, that the Committee determined, with the approval of the Managers, not only to raise the number of beds within the two Hospitals from 384 to 500, by placing beds for Convalescents in the corridors and landings, but also to pitch an encampment for 120 Convalescent Patients on the vacant plots of ground in front of the Fever Hospital. With the valuable co-operation of General Sir Henry Storks, M.P., G.C.B., and Col. Stephenson, C.B., commanding the Scots Fusilier Guards, your Committee were enabled within three days to obtain and get ready for occupation ten hospital marquees, capable of accommodating 120 Patients. The total cost of these tents, including flooring, passages, &c., was about £400, or less than £3 10-s. a bed. The wisdom of the steps taken by your Committee was fully verified in the ensuing month of May, when the disease appeared to attain its maximum, upwards of 600 Patients being under treatment at one time in the Hospitals, with a weekly admission of nearly 150 fresh cases, and a total of nearly 2,000 Patients having passed through the Hospitals up to the end of May.
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