Report of the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly.

Jamaica. Central Board of Health

Date:: 1852

Credit: Report of the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly. 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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$Qnaranfme. Answer. I do not recollect that they were. The disease did not spread much in Kingston ; prompt measures Vvore adopted by the mayor to separate and seclude the infected, and to prevent ail communica- tion with them. Question. Have you known many instances of ves- se\s arriving with cases of small pox on board at the time, or ia which cases have occurred during the voyage ? Answer. Yery many on board of vessels from all parts of England, xAmerica, the Spanish Slain, and the Windwai d islands. They have all, in their turn, been -subjected to quarantine. Question. What is the greatest number of cases ivhich you have ever known to occur on board any one vessel 1 Answer, Three or four. Question. Not more than three or four on board any emigrant ship ( Answer. The number of icases certainly never ex- ceeded six or eight, if there ever were so many. Question. Is the occurrence of single cases of small pox on board a ship not unfreqnent, the rest of the crev/ and passengers remaining unaflected 1 Answer. It is by no means unfrequent. I may mention the ship Brandon, with emigrants, which ar- rived here a few days ago, as an instance. Question. Are you aware v» hether, in some of the instances of emigrant vessels having two or three cases of small pox on board, there were several per- sons on board unvaccinated ] Answer. I am not quite prepared to give adefmite answer. In the recent case of the Brandon, there were a good many emigrants on board iinvaccinaled, who did not catch the disease. There were two hun- dred and forty-nine African emigrants, and twenty- eight of a crew. Three cases of small pox occurred during the voyage from Sierra Leone, two were fatal, one recovered. The two fatal cases occurred in un- vaccinated persons—the patient v>ho recovered had been vaccinated.$