A letter to the vice-chairman of the Board of Management of the Radcliffe Infirmary on the questions to be considered at the meetings summoned for May 17 & 31, 1866 / [Henry W. Acland].

  • Acland, Henry W. (Henry Wentworth), 1815-1900.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the vice-chairman of the Board of Management of the Radcliffe Infirmary on the questions to be considered at the meetings summoned for May 17 & 31, 1866 / [Henry W. Acland]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Parish, College, Individual, or Society, desire to keep another bed open, let him send £30. Our President keeps open three beds every year, without touching on the interest of the accumulated Capital, and at least dx beds if you allow his Grace his share of that interest. With respect to the risk of infection, if you have proper wards for a limited number of cases, virtually there is no risk whatever. Well, some have said, but what is the gain of having them ? Surely I need not answer that. You admit them now, only with bad accommodation. I had last Christmas six patients with Typhoid Fever under my care at one time. We only ask you to admit them still, but with well-devised arrangements; so that the only question ought to be how to get the proper ac- commodation for those we receive. The Committee, of which you are a member, has proposed to wholly re- model the accommodation. It is therefore generally agreed that the accommodation is insutEcient, and that we ought to provide better for a certain number. Your Committee first proposed, I believe, 18 beds, and after- wards 12. They had no objection apparently to 18, as they named that number, but finding they had not room for so many on their plan, they afterwards said 12. The principle being then conceded that it is unde- sirable to alter our existing rules, and that we should therefore improve our accommodation, we have to con- sider what is the real proposal for the 17th. I am sorry that so much has been said about found- ing an Epidemic Hospital, an expression which has natu- rally alarmed our County friends. We have about three acres at the back of our House, with open grounds both north and south of our Garden. If such a Hospital were to be placed there, no injury I imagine would