Metropolitan workhouse infirmaries, &c. : Copy of the report of Dr. Edward Smith, Poor Law inspector and medical officer to the Poor Law Board, on the Metropolitan Workhouse infirmaries and sick wards / (Viscount Enfield).

  • Smith, Edward, 1818?-1874.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Metropolitan workhouse infirmaries, &c. : Copy of the report of Dr. Edward Smith, Poor Law inspector and medical officer to the Poor Law Board, on the Metropolitan Workhouse infirmaries and sick wards / (Viscount Enfield). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    METROPOLITAN WORKHOUSE INFIRMARIES, &c. RETURN to an Order of the Honourable The House of Commons, dated 26 June 1866 COPY “ of the Report of Dr. Edward Smith, ll. b., f. r. s., Poor Law Inspector and Medical Officer to the Poor Law Board, on the Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmaries and Sick Wards.” Poor Law Board, 1 ENFIELD, 26 June 1866. / Secrerary. REPORT of Dr. Edward Smith, ll. b., f.r.s., Medical Officer to the Poor Law Board, and Poor Law Inspector, on the Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmaries and Sick Wards. My Lords and Gentlemen, 19 June 1866. In your letter of the 3d April 1866, Mr. Farnall and myself were instructed to make a careful inspection of the infirmary wards of the several metropolitan workhouses, and to inquire into the existing arrangements for the care of the sick. Our attention was specially directed to the adequacy of the accommoda- tion provided in respect of the size and ventilation and suitableness of the wards and their beds and bedding, and other furniture ; to the sufficiency of the arrangements for the supply of medical attendance and medicines; and to the provision for the nursing and care of the sick. We were also requested to suggest such alterations as might appear to us advisable in the present system, and the arrangements of each workhouse, in order to secure satisfactory treat- ment and care for the sick poor of the metropolis. I have now the honour to state that we completed the inspection of those workhouses on the 1st June 1866, and to report the result of such inspection and inquiry. The course pursued by us in conducting the inquiry, was to visit the various Mode of conduct workhouses during the daytime without giving notice of our intention to do ing the inquiry, so ; and in nearly all cases we were accompanied by the master and medical officer. We were also accompanied by a gentleman who measured the wards, except those at Lambeth, and made the various calculations upon which the tables are founded. As our investigations were restricted to the arrangements for the sick, the first duty was to arrive at a conclusion as to the persons who should be regarded as of that class. The classes of inmates in a workhouse are the able-bodied, the aged and infirm, imbeciles, and children ; and such of them are accounted sick as have been placed upon the medical relief book by the medical officer. All the cases which were found in the detached infirmaries, or in separate sick wards, were clearly of that class, but those by no means comprehended the whole ; and it became necessary to extend our inquiries to the wards of the aged and infirm, and lunatics, and in some instances even to the wards of the children. The aged and infirm were not as a body classed as sick, but many of them being bedridden, or afflicted with temporary increase of some special disorder, as, for example, bronchitis, were permanently or temporarily so regarded, and were treated in their own wards. In some workhouses the lunatics and imbeciles were warded separately from the general inmates, whilst in others they were placed in the general wards; and the medical officer, at his own discretion, in one workhouse, considered them all as sick, and in another, regarded only such of them as sick as were suffering from bodily disease. In some the sick cases were treated in their own ordinary wards, whilst in others they were removed to the infirmary, or to the proper sick wards. 37^- A The