We have shown that, between 1834 and 1847, it was not contemplated that persons actually sick would be received in the workhouse, and that there was no trace in the documents of any desire on the part of the Central Authority to interfere with the usual practice of granting to them outdoor relief, which had not been in any way condemned or discredited by the 1834 Report. The same may be said of the Statutes, Orders, and Circulars of 1847-71. We find no suggestion that the boards of guardians ought not to grant outdoor relief in cases of sickness, or that sick paupers ought to be relieved in the workhouse. On the contrary, the exceptions specifically made in favour of sick persons seem to be even widened in scope. Thus, in 1848, the Central Authority laid it down that widows with illegitimate children were not to be refused outdoor relief, if the children were sick.[367] By the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of December 1852, it was definitely provided that outdoor relief might be given in case of sickness in the family, even if the head of the family was simultaneously earning wages.[368] The same policy was embodied in the corresponding General Order issued on 1st January 1869, to certain Metropolitan unions.[369] Further, in the panic about cholera in 1866, the Central Authority informed the boards of guardians by circular that in cases of emergency they might call in any medical and other assistance that was needed, and even provide whatever sustenance, clothing, etc., was required,[370] apparently irrespective of "destitution" and of all General Orders, etc., to the contrary. Moreover, early in this period we note the beginning of the special definition of "destitution" as regards medical relief which has since been acted upon, that is to say, the inability to pay for the medical attendance that the nature of the case requires. Thus it was declared by the Central Authority in 1848 that the parish doctor might attend sick servants living in their master's household, who were plainly not destitute in the ordinary sense, as not being without food and lodging, but who, if there were no wages due to them, might be unable to pay for medical attendance.[371] A similar line of thought may be traced in that provision of the Act of 1851 which authorised boards of guardians to make annual subscriptions out of the poor rate to public hospitals and infirmaries, to enable these non-pauper institutions the better to provide "for the poor."[372] "The sick wards of the workhouses," as the Central Authority explained in 1869, "were originally provided for the cases of paupers in the workhouse who might be attacked by illness; and not as State hospitals into which all the sick poor of the country might be received for medical treatment and care. So far is this, indeed, from being the case that at least two-thirds of the sick poor receive medical attendance and treatment in their own homes."[373] When in 1869-71, the