The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-04-27 00:00:00

THE NEW FEVER HOSPITALS AND THE
SELECT VESTRY.

We complained last week of the injudicious selection of
the localities for these hospitals ; and the experience of
their annoyance to the inhabitants in their neighbourhood
has confirmed us in the•views which we then took. The
sheds in Mount Pleasant are almost universally-condemned
by medical men, as calculated to be most injurious to the
health of the inhabitants of the locality ; and, notwith-
standing the assurance intended to be consolatory, given
at a recent vestry meeting by Mr. Riding, " that the pa-
tiants should be taken in at the back and their corpses
brought out as quietly as possible," the feeling created
throughout the neighbourhood is one of repugnance and
terror.

The selection of Messrs. Horsley's shed in Great How-
ard Street, for a northern fever ward, is giving similar
dissatisfaction. Nothing can be more calculated to create
alarm than the spectacles continually to be seen by the
passers by in this great thoroughfare—at one end of the
building, a crowd of famishing wretches blocking up the
parapet whilst waiting to be relieved, and at the other
fever patients being brought in, some of them in the last
state, and all objects which ought not thus publicly to be
exposed to view. A practice we find prevails here—and
no doubt at the other establishment, which is most repre-
hensible and dangerous. We refer to the mode of con-
veying inmates to the hospital. Above a fortnight ago,
we understand, the Health Committee pointed out to the
parish authorities the necessity of a considerable addition
being made to the conveyances provided for the transport
of the poor when in a state of fever ; but, after a long dis-
cussion with them on the subject, the only answer they
could get was that an increased expense in this department
was not desirable, as there were already two conveyances
and two horses provided for the purpose. The inadequacy
of such a provision at a time like this need not be re-
marked upon.
The result of this parsimony is, that the cars from the
various stands in the town are employed, thus entailing
upon the public, who use such conveyances, the risk of
infection, and the almost certain contact with the unclean-
liness resulting. A correspondent informs us that on
Friday he saw " numbers of coaches taking parties
sick of the fever" to Great Howard-street Ward ; and on
inquiry there on Saturday, he learned that one man
brought in at five o'clock on Friday, in one of the cars,
had died in the night. Here was evidently an ex-
treme cage. The patient must have been in the last stage
of fever. Yet, what was to prevent the same car, fresh
from. the effluvia of disease, taking home, or to an even-
ing party, a concert, or a theatre, the wife or the daughters
of any of our merchants or tradesmen, or of any of the
select vestry themselves.
It is due to the public at large that a different class of
vehicles, constructed for the purpose, and into which un-
infected and healthy persons do not enter, should be
provided by the authorities ; and arrangements made, by
which the poor may have their use, free of charge, imme-
diately upon application being made. With respect to
the locality of the hospitals themselves, we submit that
a change should be made, and promptly too, unless it is
intended to add materially to the alarm already felt, and
to promote greatly the increase of mortality amongst our
population. The mayor, we observe, in reply to the
prayer of a deputation, formed to communicate with him
on the subject, states that the vestry has no power to pro-
vide such erections out of the borough. In such a crisis
as the present, however, we submit that we might safely
put merely legal right at defiance. The best course would
have been—as we suggested some time ago, and in the
propriety of which we are backed by the representation
made to the vestry last week by Mr. Hugh Neill—to
make the river the locality. We might either find vessels
suited for the purpose—the floating bath would have been
an admirable one—or we might procure leave to use tem-
porarily the quarantine hulks in the Sloyne. The present
erection in Mount-pleasant, and the Shed in Great How-
ard-street, might still be made available for the purpose
of giving shelter, at a small charge, to the immigrant
Irish, instead of sending them into our already over-
crowded lodging-houses, or the courts or back streets of
the town.

Whilst making this complaint, however, of the localities
chosen for these hospitals, so far as regards their proximity
to public thoroughfares, we must confess that with respect
to its eligibility, on sanatory grounds, the shed in Great
Howard Street possesses many advantages. The back is
open, with a good street running to the upper part of the
town, which ensures a perfect ventilation. The building
itself is unquestionable ; and the internal arrangements
are as perfect as they can be made. Although only
opened on Tuesday, it is already capable of containing 150
patients, 75 in the women's ward and the same number in
the men's, and we regret to say that this number of beds
is already occupied. Two more wards, however, are being
fitted up, which will be ready for occupation in a few days.
An ample stock of clean clothing is provided—shirts, &c.
and woollen bedgowns or wrappers, for patients in a con-
valescent state. A surgery is provided on the premises,
and an ample number of nurses are in attendance. The
matron, Mrs. Bennett, is indefatigable in her attention to
the comfort of all in the establishment, and in the carry-
ing of the arrangements required to get the whole building
into efiective working. The deaths have been, in the
Women's Ward, one little boy ; and at the time we write,
one woman is hourly expected to die, with several other
cases of great severity. In the Men's Ward three have
died.