The Strand appointment was the beginning of those systematic labours on behalf of the sick poor and the medical profession which thenceforward became the principal business of his life, to which he sacrificed such leisure as he had, health, and money which he could ill spare. He gave also what was more important--undaunted courage, and accurate information. Thus in 1861 he gave evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, on the subject of the supply of drugs in Workhouse infirmaries, such a supply being as essentially part of the Guardians' duty as the purchase of food and clothing are. His views were adopted by the Committee and pressed on the Department. What he advocated was the germ of the Workhouse infirmary. During the last few months of his life he lived at Hampstead, in the hope that the air might help him. At the back of his new home there was built one of those great hospitals for the sick poor which it was the principal aim of his labours to render general, and to see constructed in such a way as would give the fairest prospect of recovery for the patients who were treated in them. The practice of the Poor Law Board at this time was to assert on paper the supremacy of the medical officer in his own department, to give him no personal support when he did his duty, to visit on his head all the consequences of their own negligence or dilatoriness, and, right or wrong, to support the Guardians when they took offence at conscientiousness and zeal. Now, in 1865, a scandalous case of neglect led to an inquest, to an exposure of the facts, and to very severe comments by the Press. Shortly afterwards the proprietors of _The Lancet_ newspaper--a medical journal which has, during a very long career, been distinguished alike for its zeal in maintaining the honour of the medical profession and for its advocacy of humanity in dealing with the sick and destitute poor--resolved on investigating the condition of the London workhouses and their hospitals. Among other places, Dr. Anstie visited the Strand Workhouse, in Cleveland Street, and made his own report on what he saw in the columns of the paper which he represented. The report was candid, graphic, and by no means flattering to the Guardians, to their management, and to their officials. But it was entirely accurate, for the Strand Union and its Guardians at that time were probably the worst examples of a thoroughly bad and vicious system. Of course the Guardians were as angry as they could have been if they had been known for the best of characters and motives and had been grossly defamed.