[699] _Decisions of the Local Government Board_, 1902-3, by W. A. Casson, 1904, p. 7. The Poor Law Act 1879 had, in fact, expressly authorised boards of guardians to subscribe to charitable institutions to which paupers might have access. It was held, for instance, that boards of guardians may, if they choose, send their sane adult epileptics to an epileptic colony, and pay the cost of their maintenance there (_Local Government Chronicle_, 29th October 1904, p. 1123). In 1901, the Central Authority sanctioned the payment of £70 by the Bramley Board of Guardians for a cot in the sanatorium of the Leeds Association for the Cure of Tuberculosis (Local Government Board to Bramley Union, February 1901, in _Local Government Chronicle_, 23rd February 1901, p. 184). [700] In 1903 it sanctioned the expenditure involved in the setting up of Röntgen Ray apparatus in a Poor Law infirmary (_Decisions of the Local Government Board_, 1902-3, by W. A. Casson, 1904, p. 10). [701] _Decisions of the Local Government Board_, 1903-4, by W. A. Casson, 1905, p. 39. [702] _Hansard_, 24th July 1879, vol. 248, p. 1173. The guardians are reminded that the epileptics are especially to be incessantly accompanied by trained nurses, lest they should be suffocated in their fits.[703] The sick men in the workhouse may be allowed tobacco and snuff, the sick women tea, in addition to that prescribed in the dietary table.[704] The doctor is expressly reminded that it is his duty to "order such food as he may consider requisite."[705] When a complaint was made that beer was supplied in a Norfolk workhouse, the Central Authority refused to interfere with a "beer allowance" to sick paupers, given and renewed from week to week by direction of the medical officer.[706] The guardians are even reminded of the importance of providing illustrated books and newspapers for the sick.[707] [703] Local Government Board decision, in _Local Government Chronicle_, 1st November 1902, p. 1102. [704] General Order of 8th March 1894, in Twenty-fourth Annual Report, 1894-5, pp. xcix, 4-5. [705] Circular of 29th January 1895, in Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 1895-6, p. iii. [706] Mr. Long in House of Commons (23rd June 1904; _Hansard_, vol. 136, p. 971). [707] Circular of 23rd January 1891; Twentieth Annual Report, 1890-1, p. xc; Report of Royal Commission on Aged Poor, 1895, vol. iii. p. 967, (Cd. 7684 II).