While the great question of housing and overcrowding was under discussion and was being investigated, and efforts being made to deal with it, various other matters forming part of the general sanitary evolution of London were attracting attention, or gradually developing. In October, 1882, the limits of the Port of London were extended seawards, and in the following year the powers of the Port Sanitary Authority were extended.[164] Most of the powers of an Urban Sanitary Authority under the Public Health Act of 1875 were conferred upon it, and the Medical Officer of Health reported that he believed the legal powers of the Authority would be found "amply sufficient for the sanitary control and supervision of the Port." The Authority extended its attention now to the inspection of imported meat. It was a matter of the first importance to watch carefully the food supply of the people. The trade of frozen meat had been rapidly growing, and from time to time large quantities arrived in unsound condition, which it was most necessary should be prevented going on to the market. In connection with another very important article of food--namely, milk--action was also taken. The effect of the order made in 1879 by the Privy Council, as to dairies, cowsheds, and milkshops, had been very beneficial, and a marked change for the better in the conditions under which the milk trade was conducted was the result. That Order was revoked in 1885 by the Privy Council, and a new one passed extending the powers of local authorities in the matter, and prescribing further precautions to secure the sanitary condition of all dairies and cowsheds, and for the protection of milk against infection or contamination. Another beneficial sanitary improvement was effected in 1883, by the extension of the benefits of the infectious hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board. The Royal Commission on Fever and Smallpox Hospitals, in 1882, stated that in their opinion it was of paramount importance that the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, to which so many classes of persons might become liable to be removed, should be made as little unattractive as the nature of the case admitted, and they considered that the pauper character which attached to the hospitals of the Board, and which rendered them repulsive to all but the indigent, would disappear if the distinction between paupers and non-paupers were abolished. This suggestion was partially given effect to by the Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) Act of 1883, which enacted that, subject to certain arrangements, the admission of any person suffering from infectious disease into any hospital provided by the Metropolitan Asylums Board, or the maintenance of any such person therein, should not be considered to be parochial relief. The plan was only partly successful, but as years went on the hospitals were increasingly used by persons other than those of the legally recognised pauper class.