Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: British West Indian Conference on Quarantine, 1888. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
185/254 page 177
![Mb. BERKELEY: As a matter of fact you may have so many quarantine patients that you cannot accommodate them, in which case the best thing would be to charter a vessel and put the people on board. The president : I think, if we say, two or three places. Mb. BERKELEY : A large steamer came to us sometime ago ; we could not accommodate her passengers, and had to charter two schooners. Capt. MALING- : A difficulty, I un- derstand, has arisen in this very colony, that you cannot find a suitable spot. The only way out of the difficulty would be to find a hulk. The PRESIDENT: That has been forbidden. The Secretary of State ob- jects to hulks within the rivers of this colony. Db. crane : That is what is adopted in England ; in the Thames they have got, I think, two of them. Db. aRIEYE : The objection to hulks is that they say in these rivers they are liable to spread yellow fever. Db. CRANE : I suggest this :— It shall be lawful for the Governor to pro- vide one or more vessel or vessels or places, and to cause the same to be fitted up as quar- antine stations for such use and purpose as shall be with the approval of the Governor from time to time directed. Mb. SANDERSON: With the per- mission of the delegate from St. Lucia, I would ask permission to add on a sec- tion lately added to the Quarantine Ordinance of St. Lucia :— [See Minutes, Fourth Sitting. Page 68.] It is this with regard to our colony that we are now the Quarantine Island for the whole West Indies. The Royal Mail Steamers will book nobody from the last port on the South American coast, to Demerara, except they take a ticket for Barbados; they won't book them beyond Barbados on any consideration, because if they should have developed any disease it would not be right to bring them on before they transhipped to another boat and had gone through quarantine to enable the vessel to get pratique. We had the other day 23 people brought up to Barbados, people N who had not a fai-thing in the world; we were asked to provide accommodation for them and of course we refused to do it, but the Company eventually gave a guarantee to the G-overnment to reim- burse them, and we have been simply working on that guarantee from that time on. We simply lend the buildings, and the Company have to guarantee that the people are properly fed and taken care of : but we have no power such as in this section. It is a very good section to have, it cannot do any harm, and might save complications sometimes. We had 50 persons brought lately for whom it was very difficult to find accommoda- tion—32 were return immigrants for St. Lucia and Martinique, a few for here, a few for St. Vincent, and among the whole 50, only two were for Barbados. Mb. BERKELEl : A much similar thing happened in our part of the world, and we passed a resolution mak- ing it incumbent upon the ship or the agent of the ship to give a guarantee that all persons from that ship would be paid for. We had one vessel arrive with a case of small-pox, which cost us £650; if we had had the power at the time the ship would have had to give a guarantee. The president : I don't see why the ship should not have to give a guar- antee, and leave the ship authorities to recover from the persons. Db. PRINGLE : In Jamaica we pro- vide for it under the Rules. We have a provision such as this :— [See Minutes, Fourth Sitting. Page 69.] Mb. BERKELEY : The great thing is to give the law to do it. Db. PRINGLE : The power exercised by the Governor and Privy Council of Jamaica is equal to the law itself. Mb. BERKELEY: We don't want to give all these rules in the Ordinance. The president : I think myself the ship should be made liable, and let the ship look after its own passengers, because it takes the risk when it takes the passengers on board. Mb. LOW: At St. Lucia we have had to deal with cases which since the epidemic of smallpox at Martinique have been constantly occurring. Persons](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21297678_0185.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
