The Hospital Requirements of Sydney. 29 



placed in one ward, or in two wards if her sitting-room is placed 

 between and communicates with them ; but she could not so 

 efficiently supervise twenty patients if placed in four or five 

 separate wards. The best width for a ward is from 26 to 28 feet, 

 and the height 15 feet. A row of beds should be placed along 

 each side of the ward, the heads being to the walls. This width 

 is necessary to allow of sufficient room between the feet of the 

 bedsteads for the necessaiy tables, with benches on either side, 

 easy passage way, &c, &c. 



Height beyond fifteen feet is undesirable, it being more im- 

 portant to have the cubic space immediately around the patient. 



The walls and ceiling should be of Keene's cement, worked 

 plain. 



The floor should consist of the best well-seasoned hard-wood, 

 closely laid, tongued, and wrought to a smooth surface. It should 

 be laid on iron joists, and concrete, with a smooth cement sui'face 

 on the top, partly with a view of making them fire-proof, partly 

 to prevent sound travelling through, and partly to ensure that no 

 impure air shall pass from the lower to the upper floor. The 

 space between the cement and floor should be freely ventilated. 



The necessity for providing a day room for convalescents does 

 not exist in the form of hospital we have at present under con- 

 sideration, because such patients will not be retained within its 

 walls. 



Every two wards having from thirty to sixty beds, or nest of 

 small wards, not carrying in the aggregate more than from fifteen 

 to twenty beds, require a sister's room, in which she may remain 

 when not engaged in her wards. Here she arranges her needle- 

 work, keeps her ward stores, linen, rags, special invalid comforts, 

 Ac- 

 Adjoining to the sister's room should be a scullery, fitted with 

 a glazed fire-clay sink, a gas-stove, cupboards, and shelves. In 

 this apartment special invalid comforts should be prepared, poulti- 

 ces made, &c, the ward table crockery washed and kept, &c. 



At the opposite or terminal end of each ward should be two 

 small square apartments, — one on either side of the centre window. 

 One of these should contain a bath, detached from the walls, and 

 constructed of Stourbridge fire-clay, glazed inside ; also a sink, 

 at which a portable bath can be easily filled and emptied ; an 

 urinal, and a range of three white turnover basins upon a marble 

 or slate slab, to which hot and cold water should be laid on. 



The other room should contain the "W. C, and a sink for ward 

 slops ; these should be separated from the ward by a ventilated 

 lobby, with the ventilating windows placed at right angles to each 

 other, and shafts for the escape of foul air — every precaution must 

 also be taken, by a careful use of traps and ventilating pipes, to 

 prevent the drain smell from entering the building. All the waste 



