The _minimum_ of ward cubic space for a lying-in woman, even where the
delivery ward is, as it ought always to be, separate, is 2,300 cubic
feet in a single-bed ward, and 1,900 cubic feet in a four-bed ward.
[In ordinary army wooden huts, where the air comes in at every seam,
this space may be less.]
As it is a principle that superficial area signifies more than cubic
space, the surface of floor for each bed should not be less than 150
square feet per bed in a four-bed ward, and in a single-bed ward not
less than 190 square feet, because this is the total available space for
all purposes in a single-bed ward. This space has to be occupied, not
only by the lying-in woman and her infant, and perhaps a pupil midwife
washing and dressing it at the fire, but often by the midwife, an
assistant, possibly the medical officer, and pupil midwives. In a
four-bed ward there is space common to all the beds.
_The Delivery Ward._
Ought to be separate in every lying-in institution; _must_ be separate
in an institution of more than four or five beds, though in separate
compartments.
Every delivery bed should have a superficial area of not less than 200
square feet, and a cubic space of not less than 2,400 cubic feet.