Special report by Dr. Gairdner to the Magirstrates' Committee, on the proposed temporary fever hospital in Nassau Court, Anderston.

  • Gairdner, W. T. (William Tennant), Sir, 1824-1907.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Special report by Dr. Gairdner to the Magirstrates' Committee, on the proposed temporary fever hospital in Nassau Court, Anderston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    to modern scientific requirements, were at all capable of in- fecting the general atmosphere of an adjoining building, it ought to have been frequently shown in the history of the Surgical House, especially during the past two years. So far from this being the case, however, the Surgical Hospital is notoriously one of the healthiest in the kingdom; and I believe I am correct in stating that nothing has occurred during the last two years to inspire serious misgivings as to the conse- quences of its proximity to the Fever House, unless it be that nurses, or convalescent patients of the two establishments, associating together in the airing grounds or otherwise, may sometimes have communicated or received infection in isolated cases.* A more analagous case, however, to the Anderston one, is that of the Town's Hospital Fever Wards, which are, as it happens, in the immediate neighbourhood of a large block of houses called Miller's Court, facing to Dobbie's Loan, and tenanted by exactly the class of population most liable to the diffused infection of epidemic fever. The distance, in this case, between this Fever Hospital (which has been largely occupied during the past year, to the number, I believe, of 60 to 80 cases), and Miller's Court is much the same as between the proposed Hospital in Anderston and the Schools so often referred to as exposed to infection; while the latter have the advantage that there is an intervening block of building, thirty to forty feet high, which might surely be expected, on the principles professed by the leader of the deputation, to make the Schools as safe as if they were at Dowanhill. I have had a special inquiry made as to the condition of Miller's Court during the present epi- demic, and the result will be found below, in a letter from * It is difficult to obtain very precise facts bearing on this subject over a lengtli of time, without some risk of error; .but I have this day, February 2, made particular inquiiy as to the last three or four mouths, and ascertained that, during this period, when the Fever Hospital has been at the very fullest, and undoubtedly very dangerously full as regards its own inmates (nurses and medical staff), there has not been a single case of fever originat- ing in the Surgical Hospital.