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629 of the front block, are fireproof. The chief feature in the general arrangement of the various buildings is that the wards are. only one storey high, and that they are, together with all administrative offices, dining-rooms, kitchens, &c., upon one floor. The ward floors do not rest on an enclosed basement, but are well raised from the ground, by means of arches, so as to give an air space between the floors and the ground. The various departments though connected with each other by corridors are otherwise distinct and have cir- culation of air all round them. In the front block the ground floor contains waiting-rooms, secretary’s rooms, matron’s office and sitting-room, house surgeons’ rooms, and board-room, with separate lavatories, &c., in the wings ; the ,nurses are for the present accommodated in the upper floors. The surgical block is a one-storey building, at the entrance to which is a large glass-covered area to shelter carriages, ambulances, &c. This block contains porters’ rooms, .accident receiving-room, examination rooms, microscope- room, dispensary, &c., and a large hall, which for the present will be used for out-patients. The central hall, at the junction of the two main corridors, is two storeys in height, with a gallery on the first floor. Round it are grouped a number of rooms for the general service of the hospital, comprising assistant-matron’s office, linen store, sewing- room, and library; also the dining-room for the house sur- geons and matrons and spacious dining-halls for the nurses and servants respectively. The wash-house and laundry are situated at the rear of the site, and are separated from the kitchen block by a large grass-covered drying ground. The present ward pavilions are six in number-viz., three for men, two for women, and one for children-and will contain 150 beds. Each pavilion is detached and raised from the surface of the ground so that it has a clear air space all round, and has a cross ventilating passage from side to side art each end of the ward. On one side of the entrance passage connecting each of the ward pavilions with the main corridor is a small ward for special cases, a patients’ clothes room, and housemaids’ closets. On the other side is a nurses’ duty room, with pantry and store-room for ward- linen, splints, &0. The large wards are all alike and (except the children’s ward), contain twenty beds each. They are 88 fit. long, 23 fc. wide and 17 ft. high to the centre of the coved ceiling. Four. of them have oak floors, the floors of the other two being laid with terrazzo" " mosaic. All these floors are based on concrete, carried by iron girdrrs. The walls are of Keen’s cement, painted with four coats of Gay’s enamel paint. All recesses are avoided, and all angles rounded, so as to prevent lodgement of dust and impurities of any kind. Each of the large wards is heated by two double nre-places, and when needed, by steam heaters, which likewise serve as inlets for fresh air. At the further end of each wa.rd are lavatories, bath-room, nurses’ scullery, &c., and in each of the four wards which face south there is a cheerful day - room. The operating-theatre, as well as the adjoining anaesthetic-room and instrument - room, have floors of white "terrazzo" " and walls ’of Keen’s cement painted with Gay’s enamel paint, so that the whole theatre can be washed down. The theatre has no roof-light ; it is lighted by a large north window. The instrument cabinet, operation table, and other fittings are the generous gift of Mr. J. Hodgson Wright, the senior member of the honorary medical staff. The instru- ment cabinet is of polished mahogany, with glass shelves and glass doors. The operation table and other fittings are of enamelled iron with glass top. When necessary the operation table can be heated specially by a current of steam passing through a series of pipes lying below the ghss top, the arrangement being devised by Mr. J. Whitely Ward, an ex-president of the infirmary, who has devoted a great amount of time to details of hospital con- struction. The theatre is heated by steam pipes. There are no trapped drains, all waste water passing directly - outside. Attached to the operating-theatre are two small side-room?, used for sterilising instruments and storing dressings. The whole of the buildings and grounds are lighted by electricity, there being an installation on the premises consisting of a 52-horse-power combined Chandler steam engine and dynamo and sixty Epstein storage cells. The buildings have been erected according to the designs of Messrs. Worthington and Elwood and their successors, Messrs. Thomas Worthington and Son, archi- tects, of Manchester, and under their superintendence. The total cost of the contracts executed and of the work yet to be done (exclusive of the site and of the boundary wall and Lodge, which are to be left over for the present) is estimated at .672,625, leaving a deficiency of about E20,000 to be provided for. The Duke of York announced that by the Queen’s commands, he had to declare that the infirmary would be known in the future as " The Royal Halifax Infirmary." Public Health and Poor Law. LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT. REPORTS OF MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH. Gtlildfo’J’d RU’J’al Sanitary District.Mr. Wellington Lake continued during 1895 to exercise a somewhat detailed control over the throats of school children in this district. After the re-assembling of the schools and at intervals after- wards he personally examined the throats of all the children attending, and rigidly excluded children manifest- ing the least sore-throat. By this means, Mr. Lake, although as he terms it " playing havoc " with the school attendance, diminished the occasions on which school closure was neces- sary. He thinks that the Education Act should be so amended as to preclude the loss of grant due to the exclusion of children from school for the purpose of public benefit. It is to be hoped that Mr. Lake will continue his routine practice over a sufficiently long period and over a sufficient number of schools to enable a systematic report to be made of the results, as far as conclusions are possible with such varying manifestations of infectious disease. SoUthP01’t Urban Sanitary lJist’i’ict.-Dr. Henry Vernon has devoted a considerable portion of his report to a statistical analysis of the Southport death and birth rates as looked at from the standpoint of peculiar age and sex dis- tribution in this district in comparison with those of England and Wales. He also compares the average death-rate from each of the principal infectious diseases during the last ten years with the same rates through England and Wales. As a, rule the Southport figures come well out of the scrutiny, but in the matter of diphtheria this district shows an excess. Dr. Vernon is of opinion that the epidemics of diphtheria which have occurred in Southport have coincided with a rapid rise in level of the subsoil water caused by the suc- cession of wet upon dry seasons. Southport is situated upon a porous sandy soil, which affords facilities for the rapid soakage of rain and the consequent displacement of ground air. It is interesting to note that the diarrhoea rate is usually small in Southport. Northampton Urban -District. Lee Cogan reports that during the year 1895 three nurses engaged in nursing cases of enteric fever contracted the disease while discharging their duties ; all, however, we are glad to see, recovered. Mr. Ccgan thinks that with the improved advantages afforded by the new wards for typhoid fever such unfortunate occurrences will cease. We note that there were but eleven cases of enteric fever treated in Northampton during the year. Stoke Nemington Sanitary District.-Dr. H. R. Kenwood, in commenting upon the question of infantile mortality, condemns strongly a social system which renders indirect child murder through the agency of baby farming a matter of little difficulty and he advocates reform in the direction of registration, frequent inspection, and the holding of inquests in cases where death may have resulted under con- ditions possibly due to neglect. Dr. Kenwood also advocates that with a view to the prevention of overlying, the child should be wrapped up in a blanket and placed on a pillow between the two pillows of the parents. The efficiency of the disinfection of rooms by means of sulphurous acid fumi- gation has recently engaged Dr. Kenwood’s attention, and he reports that during the last two years there have been 332 cases of scarlet-fever and diphtheria notified, and that out of this number there were twenty - four instances (twenty-two of scarlet fever and two of diphtheria) in which a fresh case occurred in premises previously dis- infected by the sanitary authority. It seems, however, that in only two instances did the symptoms manifest themselves within eight days of disinfection, and Dr. Kenwood does not consider that this evidence is sufficient to condemn the method of disinfection adopted. There are,
