There is, indeed, no part of sanitary work requiring more constant attention than the protection of the community from the spread of infectious diseases, and this is best secured by hospitals affording proper provision for isolation and treatment of infectious cases.
Next to the adoption of proper measures for the prevention of disease, a suitable provision for the speedy restoration of the sick to health is obviously of the greatest importance to the community.
So far as the absolutely destitute were concerned, all had, by the law of England, subject to certain conditions, right to food, shelter, and medical attendance; and they accordingly received gratuitous medical treatment at workhouses, or dispensaries, and in sick wards.
Indeed, any person suffering from an infectious disease might, if willing to become a pauper, take advantage of such provision as was made by the Guardians of the Poor, the provision being imperfectly isolated wards and buildings attached to the several Metropolitan Workhouses and Infirmaries. Those not so willing were compelled to remain at home, a source of danger to those around them, and if poor, with insufficient medical attendance and nourishment.
For a long time the only special provision for certain infectious diseases for the whole of London was that in the London Fever, and the London Smallpox Hospitals, both of which were maintained by private charity.
Happily, where neither the State nor the local authorities did anything, charity stepped in, and on a larger scale supplied an inevitable want; and medical charities grew up to give relief in time of sickness to those of the working classes of society who were unable to provide for themselves, but this was mostly for non-infectious or non-contagious diseases.
None of the Vestries or District Boards gave any sign of making provision for those who were not paupers, although the duty of giving opportunity for isolation of infectious persons whose diseases made them dangerous to others, be they paupers or not, devolved upon them under the Sanitary Act of 1866 as the Sanitary Authorities concerned in the prevention of the extension of disease.
"Indeed it must be admitted," wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Chelsea some years later, "that the Vestries never recognised their responsibilities (as sanitary authorities) from the very first."