Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) Act 1883 (original) (raw)

The Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) Act (46 & 47 Vict c 35) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in 1883, during the reign of Queen Victoria. Earlier in the century the Metropolitan Asylums Board (MAB) had been established under the Metropolitan Poor Act 1867 to deal with London's sick poor, run as a Poor Law institution. But under increasing pressure resulting from a series of smallpox epidemics in the early 1880s a Royal Commission was set up in 1881 to investigate how best to deal with those suffering from infectious diseases. The commission recommended that the provision of hospital treatment for those with infectious diseases should be decoupled from the Poor Law, and instead be considered part of London's sanitary arrangements. The commission also recommended that p