5775 Or cost for each bed ---- = £231 25 The comparative cost of wards with 9 beds and 25 beds, would stand thus for 1000 sick: Wards with 9 beds £427,775 Wards with 25 beds 231,000 --------- Saving £196,775 Deduct cost of Netley, already incurred 119,000 --------- Saving from abandoning Netley = £77,775 The cost of the administration per 1000 beds at Netley and Aldershot would stand as follows: Netley £427,775 Aldershot, pavilions, with 3 superimposed wards and 25 sick in each, would require 3 Orderlies and 1 Nurse[14] to each ward, and would cost £264 per bed in perpetuity, or per 1000 sick 264,000 --------- Difference of cost in favour of Aldershot £163,775 Some abatement would have to be made, as regards the cost of Netley, as there are a few wards with 16 or 18 sick. If we take money at 4 per cent., the calculation will be as follows: Small wards, 2 Orderlies and a third of a Nurse, at £50 per annum; money at 4 per cent., per 1000 sick £324,000 Wards of 30. 3 Orderlies and a Nurse, money at 4 per cent., per 1000 sick 166,000 --------- Extra cost of small wards 158,000 Cost of Netley 119,000 --------- Saving in giving it up £39,000 [Sidenote: 13. Hospital Floors.] 13. FLOORS.--In building a new Hospital or laying a new floor we shall hope to see, by degrees, everywhere introduced the only safe Hospital floor. In the expense the difference between oak and the best white deal ought never to be considered. The staircases and passages should always be of stone. When once an oak floor is well done with bees’-wax it is no longer an absorbing surface. There cannot be a doubt that the frequent washing of the floors, in London Hospitals, is one main cause of Erysipelas and Hospital Gangrene. But, with regard to deal flooring,-- (1.) The best way with a pine floor already laid is to close the joints, plane the surface quite smooth, and then saturate the wood with beeswax and turpentine, either at once, or after the wood has been saturated with “drying” linseed oil well rubbed in. (2.) Enough beeswax should be used to fill up the grain of the wood, and rubbing with a brush will then smooth the surface. It will be polished somewhat, but not slippery. The amount of polish depends on the brushing.