1805

St. Peter’s Hospital for Stone, £75: -, St. Saviour’s Hospital,Hegent’s-pltrk, N.W., JElOO ; St. Thomas’s Hospital (the committeeis gla(l to see that, there is a substantial surplus this y ear) ; Sal-vattnn Army Maternity Hospital, Hacknoy (the committee cannotcontinue to support this institution in its present condition);Samaritan Free Hospital, ,c500 annual; Santa Claus Ilome, lligh-gate, C25 in of the fact that cnrahe c.LSCS are

admitted ; Tottenhmu Hospital, £2000- £1000 annual to maintainbeds reopened by this Fund £1000 to building fund; UniversityCollege Hospital, ZIOOO annual, £2000 (the committee trusts that thishospital will now be able to reopen the remaining 19 closecl beds) ;Victoria Ilospital for Sick Children, Chelsea. £1400- 21000 to buildingfund (the committee trusts that, the vacant wards will shortly beopened for free patients); West-end Hospital for Diseases of theNervous System, JEI25 towards balcony: Western Ophthalmic ITos-pital..E150 to ont-hatients’ department; West Ilam Hospital, e300annual, £2000, .E300 annual towards maintenance, ,clOOO to building;West London Hospital. £1500 annual. £500 ; Westminster Hospital..E750 annual, £750; and Woolwich and Plumstead Cottage Hospital, £50.The awards recommended tor convalescent homes are as

follows :-

All Saints’, Eastbourne, E100; Alexandra Hospital, Painswick, £50;Charing Cross Hospital, Linipslielcl, Surrey, E50; East London Hospitalfor Children, Bognor, B100 : King’s College Hospital, Hemel Hemp-stead, £100 ; Mary Warden, Stanmore, Middlesex, £50 ; MetropolitanHospital, Cranbrook, £25; Metropolitan Institution, l’iecadi)ly,;E200;Middlesex Hospital, Clacton-on-Sea, £100; Mrs. Gladstone’s Free Homefor the Poor, Mitcham, Surrey, .625; Mrs. Kitto’s Free ConvalescentHome. Reigate, .E25; National Hospital for 1 he Paralysed and Epileptic,East Finchley..E50; Paddington-green Children’s Hospital, Slough,250: Queen Charlotte’s LB’ing-in Hospital, Victoria-road, Kilburn, £25;and,Victoria Hospital for Children, Broadstairs, .E50.

METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL SUNDAYFUND.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING.THE annual general meeting of the constituents of this

Fund was held in the salon of the London Mansion House on

Dec. 16th under the presidency of the LORD MAYOR. Amongthose present were the Archdeacon of London, PrebendaryRidgeway, Sir William Broadbent, Sir Alfred Fripp, Sir

Joseph Dimsdale, M.P., Sir Savile Crossley, Sir John Bell,Sir Henry Burdett, the Hon. Sydney Holland, the ChiefRabbi, Mr. Thomas Wakley; Dr. J. G. Glover, Mr. R. B.Martin, M.P., Mr. R. Grey, and the Hon. Stephen Coleridge.The report of the council stated that the result of the

year’s collection was £63,054. The collections in the variousplaces of worship amounted to £47,911, of which St. Paul’sCathedral headed the list with .65492. Mr. George Herringhad again supplemented the amount collected in various

places of worship to the extent of a quarter of the totalamount obtained. His gift this year had been 11,926.

This report was adopted on the motion of Mr. ROBERTGREY, seconded by Sir WILLIAM BROADBENT, after con-siderable dii-custion, in the course of which Sir JOHN BELLdrew attention to the refusal of an award to the CityOrthopaedic Hospital this year, and Mr. COLERIDGE proposedan amendment having reference to the alleged appropriationby medical schools of funds granted for other purposes. In

seconding this amendment the Rev. L. S. LEwis complainedthat the London Hospital had spent R7000 on a sportsground.The Hon. SYDNEY HOLLAND, chairman of the London

Hospital, pointed out that the money was used for thepurpose referred to because it was a good investment. Theground could be sold at any time for .E10,000 and it wasbringing in 4 per cent. interest. He was of opinion thatthe sick poor were most efficiently helped by medical schoolsattached to hospitals.

Dr. GLOVER and Sir HENRY BuRDETT took part in thediscussion, the former dwelling upon the incalculable benefitwhich medical research had conferred upon humanity andthe latter suggesting that a special fund should be created tosupport medical schools if such support was found necessary.As the committee of King Edward’s Hospital Fund dealingwith the subject in question was now sitting he hoped thatfurther discussion on the matter would be withheld untilthat committee had presented its report.To this suggestion Mr. COLERIDGE assented.On the motion of Prebendary REYNOLDS, seconded by Mr.

D. POWER, the council for the year 1904 was re-elected forthe year 1905, with the addition of the Right Rev. BishopAmigo (of Southwark), the Rev. C. J. Proctor (vicar oflslington), Sir J. Thomson Ritchie, Bart., and Mr. DeputyWallace, to fill vacancies. Motions were also adoptedthanking Mr. George Herring for his generosity which had

assisted the Fund by the large amount of £11,926, and alsofixing Hospital Sunday, 1905, for June 25th.The proceedings, which at one time threatened to be of a

stormy character, concluded peacefully with a vote ofthanks to the Lord Mayor, proposed by Mr. WAKLEY whoreferred in eulogistic terms to the admirable way in whichthe meeting had been conducted. This motion was dulyseconded and carried with acclamation.

MEETING OF LONDON COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.On the following day, Dec. 17th, the Lord Mayor invited

the commercial travellers of London to a conference at theMansion House to consider the best means of increasing thecollections on Hospital Sunday to f.100,OOO. There was a

large attendance.The LORD MAYOR, in opening the proceedings, said that

commercial travellers had great opportunities of introducingthe work of the Hospital Sunday Fund to the notice of thosewith whom they came in contact without injuring their owncharities which they supported so well.

Sir JOSEPH DIMSDALE proposed the following motion :-That the hospitals of London are deserving of support and especially

at the present time.

He said, referring to the last words of the motion, that theho-pitals at all times deserved the greatest support. Some

people did not realise the gigantic work which the hospitalswere doing year by year. In 12 months no fewer than 108,687in-patients and 1,771,199 out-patients were treated. Thisimmense work necessitated an outlay of no less thanf.1,239,988, towards which there was only a reliableincome of f.920,113, leaving a deficit, to be made

up by voluntary contributions, of f.319,875. But duringthe past year 211 hospitals, institutions, and dispensarieshad received substantial assistance from the HospitalSunday Fund. The committee was also authorised to

spend 5 per cent. of the amount collected in surgicalappliances. This year 6158 appliances had been granted.The total receipts had risen from £27,700 in 1873, whenthe Fund was inaugurated, to £63,054 this year, and the

congregations contributing to the Fund from 1072 to 2004.He mentioned the, munificent yearly donations given by Mr..George Herring, whose last contribution amounted to £11,926.He thought his hearers would agree that the expensesincurred by the work of the Fund were very moderate whenhe told them that it was done upon an outlay of lessthan 5 per cent. If only 2,000,000 individuals of the

population would give Is. each the amount asked forwould be obtamea. The object ot the meeting wasto ask the assistance of those present in bringing theFund to the notice of the toilers, so many of whom mustbe in sympathy with the work of the hospitals. The

hospitals of the metropolis were really imperial institutions,and he asked them as the busy bees of the metropolis to askthose whom they met to support them as charities which,regardless of creed or nationality, gave comfort and supportto the sick and alleviated suffering. Some 25 per cent. ofthe occupants of beds in the London Hospital came fromcountry districts and these districts should therefore rendertheir assistance to the Fund. There was no greater act ofcharity that his hearers could possibly do than by helpingto assist the hospitals and he thanked God that our

institutions of healing were still kept up by voluntarycontributions.Sir FREDERICK TREVES seconded the motion and saidthat the basis of appeal for hospital funds had entirelychanged since the time when the Hospital SundayFund was founded owing to the advance of medicineand surgery and the innnmerable methods of treat-ment requiring special appliances and antiseptic con-

ditions which were hardly attainable in private houses.The work of the hospitals therefore played a more

important part than formerly and was directly beneficial toall classes of the population. The London hospitals weremetropolitan only in their locality. Patients were to be foundin every London hospital from every part of the countryand from practically every colony under the British flag. If

any of them heard of a friend being injured in the countryalmost the first remark made was : "Well, I do hopehe has fallen into the hands of a competent surgeon."Nobody ever stopped to think where such surgeons obtainedtheir education. It was a remarkable fact that themedical education of this country depended entirely on thevoluntary hospitals, and to an overwhelming extent on thevoluntary hospitals in London. If they inquired what the

1806

- subscribess to hospitals got for their money he would, takingbut one iastance, ask what they thought was the com-.mercial value to the world of antiseptic surgery as introducedby Lord Lister ? This boon without price was a free gift to theworld, after no State grant, no huge sum subscribed to carryon an inquiry, from a solitary man working in a hospitalsupported by voluntary contributions. In the London Hos-

pital alone there were treated 183,000 new out-patients in-one year, more than the whole population of Brighton.Filing past the table at which he was standing at the rateof four a minute, night and day, the patients would take amonth. to go by. Sir Frederick Treves then gave someremarkable statistics showing the amount of drugs andsurgical material used in the London Hospital in one yearin order to put before the mind of his audience some ideaof the almost unimaginable benefit conferred upon humanityby the work done by our magnificent charities for the sick.Archdeacon SINCLAIR, in supporting the motion, said that

there were 2000 beds unoccupied in the London hospitals forwant of money. He would not like to see the hospitals goupon the rates and the commercial travellers of London, whothemselves had done so much in helping the helpless, hadnumerous opportunities of enlisting more general support forthe Fund.Mr. J. E. AIGER, on behalf of the meeting, thanked the

Lord Mayor for inviting the commercial travellers andassured hun of their desire that the movement should have apractical result.The motion was adopted unanimously.Mr. CHARLES A. BODY proposed, and Mr. J. EATON

seconded, the following motion :That this meeting of London commercial travellers, being desirous of

assisting the hospitals of London, pledge themselves to do their utmostto raise a. fund to be added to the collection at St. Paul’s Cathedral onHospital Suaad&y, June 25th, 1905.

It was explained that the object of adding the money to theSt. Paul’s collection was to gain the grant which Mr.Herring was good enough to give.

,..

The motion. was unanimously adopted and on the proposalof Mr. H. S. WINDSOR and Mr. A. J. BRETT a vote of thankswaas apcorded to the LORD MAYOR who said that specialcoltecting cards would be sent to all who had been invitedto the meeting.

VITAL STATISTICS.

HEALTH OF ENGLISH TOWNS.

IN 76 of the largest English towns 8438 births and 5631deaths were registered during the week ending Dec. 17th.The annual rate of mortality in these towns, which hadbeen 17.3, 21’6, and 18’ per 1000 in the three precedingweeks, rose again to 19’ 2 per 1000 last week. In London the death-rate was 19’ 0 per 1000, while it averaged I19 - 3 per- 1000 in the 75 other large towns. The lowestdeath-rates in these towns were 7’ in Hornsey, 8’7 7 inBarcow-in-Furness, 10’ in Southampton, 12’ in Leyton,in Walthamstow and in Handsworth (Staffs.), 12’9 in

Botirfietmoutb, and 13’ 0 in Wallasey ; the highest rates were24.’7 in Stockton on-Tees, 25’ 5 in Bristol, 25 - 7 in Wigan,26-1 in Burton-on-Trent, 26’2 in South Shields, 26-4 inWest Bcomwich, 27’4 in Plymouth, and 30-2 in Hanley.The 5831 deaths in these towns last week included421 winch were referred to the principal infectiousdiseases, against 400, 482, and 438 in the three precedingweeks; of these 421 deaths, 146 resulted from measles,69 from whooping-cough, 66 from diphtheria, 49 fromdiarrhoea 43 from scarlet fever, 42 from "fever" (prin-cipa.Lly enteric), and six from small-pox. No death fromany of these diseases was registered last week in Hornsey,Hastings, Bournemouth, Southampton, Burton-on-Trent,King’s Norton, Smethwick, Aston Manor, Warrington,Huddersfield, Rotherham, or Newport (Mon.) ; while theycaused the highest death-rates in Plymouth, Grimsby, Wigan,Middtesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, South Shielcis, Tynemouth,and Merthyr Tydfil. The greatest proportional mortalityfrom measles occurred in Plymouth, Devonport, Bristol,Grimsby, Liverpool, Wigan, Middlesbrough, and Tyne-mouth; from scarlet fever in West Bromwich ; from diph.theria in Handsworth (Staffs.), Derby, Stockton-on-Tees, andWest Hartlepool; from whooping-cough in St. Helens,Barrow-in-Furness, Hull, South Shields, and Merthyr Tydfil ;

from "fever" in Burnley and York ; and from diarrhoea, inHanley. Of the six fatal cases of small-pox registered inthe 76 large towns last week, two belonged to Preston, twoto South Shields, one in Oldham, and one in Halifax. Thenumber of small-pox patients in the Metropolitan Asylumshospitals, which had been one, three, and four at the endof the three preceding weeks, had further risen to six atthe end of last week; two new cases were admitted duringthe week, against two, two, and one in the three precedingweeks. The number of scarlet fever cases remainingunder treatment in these hospitals and in the London FeverHospital on Saturday, Dec. 17th, was 2403, against 2741,2625, and 2490 on the three preceding Saturdays ; 242 newcases were admitted during the week, against 263, 247, and263, in the three preceding weeks. The deaths in Londonreferred to pneumonia and diseases of the respiratorysystem, which had been 385, 565, and 448 in the three pre-ceding weeks, rose again last week to 487, and were 142above the number in the corresponding period of last

year. Influenza was certified as the primary cause of 45deaths in London last week, against 30, 26, and 30 in thethree preceding weeks. The causes of 65, or 1’ 2 percent., of the deaths in the 76 towns last week were notcertified either by a registered medical practitioner or bya coroner. All the causes of death were duly certified inWest Ham, Leicester, Bradford, Leeds, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in 46 other smaller towns ; the largest propor-tions of uncertified deaths were registered in Burton-on-Trent, Birmingham, Coventry, Liverpool, St. Helens,Warrington, and South Shields.

HEALTH OF SCOTCH TOWNS.

The annual rate of mortality in eight of the principalScotch towns, which had been 18’0, 21’ 2, and 19’7 7 per1000 in the three preceding weeks, further rose to 22’6 6per 1000 during the week ending Dec. 17th, and was3’ 4 per 1000 in excess of the mean rate during the sameperiod in the 76 large English towns. The rates in the

eight Scotch towns ranged from 16’9 in Perth and 17’1in Edinburgh to 24’ 8 in Paisley and 26 ’ 6 in Glasgow. The747 deaths in these towns last week included 32 which werereferred to whooping-cough, 17 to measles, 16 to diarrhoea,seven to diphtheria, six to " fever," and two to scarlet fever.In all, 80 deaths resulted from these principal infectiousdiseases last week, against 60, 71, and 68 in the three

preceding weeks. These 80 deaths were equal to an annualrate of 2’ 4 per 1000, which was 1 - 0 per 1000 above themean rate last week from the same diseases in the 76

large English towns. The fatal cases of whooping-cough,which had been 21, 34, and 38 in the three precedingweeks, declined again last week to 32, of which 26 occurredin Glasgow and three in Edinburgh. The deaths from

measles, which had been 16 and ten in the two precedingweeks, rose again to 17 last week and included ten in

Aberdeen, three in Glasgow, and three in Leith. Thefatal cases of diarrhoea, which had been 18, ten, and 15 inthe three preceding weeks, increased last week to 16, ofwhich six were registered in Glasgow, four in Dundee, twoin Edinburgh, and two in Aberdeen. The deaths fromdiphtheria, which had been nine, six, and three in thethree preceding weeks, rose again to seven last week andincluded five in Glasgow. The fatal cases of "fever," whichhad been three, four, and one in the three preceding weeks,increased last week to six, of which four occurred in Glasgow.The deaths referred to diseases of the respiratory organs inthese towns, which had been 174, 190, and 204 in the threepreceding weeks, further rose last week to 206 and were22 in excess of the number in the corresponding periodof last year. The causes of 13, or nearly 2 per cent., ofthe deaths in these eight towns last week were not certified.

HEALTH OF DUBLIN.

The death-rate in Dublin, which had been - 22’6, 27’ Q,and 25’2 2 per 1000 in the three preceding weeks, was 25 3per 1000 during the week ending Dec. 17th. Duringthe past four weeks the death-rate has averaged 25’ 0 per1000, the rates during the same period being 18’9, inLondon and 16’ 1 in Edinburgh. The 184 deaths of personsbelonging to Dublin registered during the week under noticeincluded 10 which were referred to the principal infed-tious diseases, against 21, 20, and 14 in the three pre-ceding weeks ; not any of these deaths resulted from

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