The Managers were, therefore, enabled to admit other than pauper patients reasonably believed to be suffering from fever, smallpox, or diphtheria.
The system was attended with the happiest results in reducing the amount of infectious disease in the metropolis, and proved a great boon to all classes of the community.
The Board in its annual report wrote:—
“The Managers are now, for the first time since the establishment of the Board in 1867, virtually recognised as the Metropolitan Authority for the provision of accommodation for the isolation and treatment of infectious disease—both pauper and non-pauper—and are now empowered to legally perform duties which the Legislature had imposed on the District Sanitary Authorities, but which the Managers had hitherto been called upon to perform in consequence of the failure of most of such Authorities to provide accommodation for non-pauper patients.”
The Managers by this date had increased the accommodation for patients afflicted with any of these infectious diseases. There were six fever hospitals, 2,463 beds; 350 beds in smallpox hospital ships; and 800 beds in the hospital for convalescing smallpox patients.
One other Act[171] deserves mention before the close of this decade as it contained an unique section which required the Medical Officer of Health, on notice from the owner of property in which there are separate dwellings let for 7s. 6d. or less a week, to visit them and examine all their sanitary arrangements, &c., so as to be able to certify or not—
“That the house is so constructed as to afford suitable accommodation for each of the families or persons inhabiting it, and that due provision is made for their sanitary requirements.”
The certificate, if granted, was to be handed to the owner, who was then able to obtain the remission of the inhabited house duty.
The owner, therefore, obtained a remission of taxes to which he was justly liable, because the dwelling which he lets was in a sanitary condition!