Quarantine as it is, and as it ought to be / by Gavin Milroy.

  • Gavin Milroy
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quarantine as it is, and as it ought to be / by Gavin Milroy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Such articles as foul rags, putrid hides, rotten meat and vegetables, guano, &c., should be landed under special regulations, and apart from ordinary wharves and from dwellings. Foul bed and body linen and other baggage of the sort should not be lauded when there has been sickness on board, or where any epidemic exists on shore, without previous thorough cleansing and disinfection. 5. Vessels in a filthy, unwholesome state from foul bilges or other- wise should not be allowed, whether there has been sickness on board or not, at once to enter a crowded port, or to lie alongside a wharf or other ships ; nor should they be permitted to land their cargoes until they have been duly cleansed out and ventilated. A. foul ship is much more to be dreaded as a vehicle of introducing disease than anything she has on board ; and no small risk is often in- curred by pilots, custom-house officers, and other persons who go and remain on board. The atmosphere in the hold and the between- decksofsuch a vessel will often poison a stranger fresh from the shore, when the crew have escaped. If disease has been on board during the voyage or on arrival, the ship should be limewashed and fumigated, as well as cleaned out and aired* before free entrance is granted. 6. One of the most important duties of a quarantine health- officer should be to maintain a vigilant supervision over the sanitary state of ships in port and on arrival. If bills of health were made to certify the condition of a ship, and of her accommodation for the crew and passengers, as well as the mere existence or non-existence of disease in the port of departure, a far more effectual protection against the introduction of disease into the port of arrival would be afforded than now exists. A clean bill of health would then have a significant meaning, and the services of the health-officer would be of great value to the community. The machinery of quarantine might thus be made instrumental in the general sanitary improvement of mercantile shipping, a subject which calls for much more public attention in every country than it has yet received. There is a large amount of impaired and damaged health, as well as of actual disabling sickness and of death, among the crews of our merchantmen, arising from causes on board ship which might be easily prevented. 7. As to the quarantine measure on land of encircling an infected spot with a cordon of troops or police in the hope of preventing the extension of any pestilence, humanity as well as experience denounce it as utterly unjustifiable. It is alike barbarous and homicidal. Such is the system of quarantine which I should propose. If asked what hope is there of so simple a system being ever adopted generally, and in foreign countries as well as in our own country and colonies, I must admit that the attempts hitherto made to reform the existing quarantine have been anything but encouraging. Missions and commissions, and international conferences have been tried and failed, and diplomatic remonstrances have not been more successful.
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