left to the discretion of the health officer and Board of United States. Health. There is a lazaret. Cargoes are not landed. Medical assistance is provided for the sick at the public expense. No sanitary inspection is made of vessels prior to granting bills of health.

CHARLESTON.

By the second section of an Act of General Assembly (passed the 6th day of September, 1868), establishing quarantine at Georgetown, Charleston, and Hilton Head, it is enacted

1. "All vessels from any place where pestilential, contagious, or infectious disease existed at the time of their departures, or which shall have arrived at such place and proceeded thence to either of the said ports, or on board of which, during the voyage, any case of such disease shall have occurred, arriving between the 1st day of May and 1st of November, shall remain at quarantine for at least thirty days after their arrival, and at least twenty days after their cargo shall have been discharged, and shall perform such other quarantine as the health officers shall prescribe."

2. "All vessels from any place (including islands) in Asia, Africa, or the Mediterranean, or from any of the West Indies, Bahamas, Bermuda, or Western Islands, or from any place in America, in the ordinary passage from which they pass south of Hilton Head; and all vessels on board of which during the voyage or while at the port of their departure, any person shall have been sick, arriving between the 1st day of May and 1st of November, and all vessels from a foreign port, and not embraced in the first subdivision of this section, shall, on arriving

United States.

at the quarantine ground, be subject to visitation by the health officers, but shall not be detained beyond the requisite time for due examination and observation, unless they shall have had on board during the voyage some case of infectious, contagious, or pestilential disease, in which case they shall be subject to such quarantine and regulations as the health officers may prescribe."

3. "All vessels embraced in the foregoing provisions, which are navigated by steam, shall be subjected only to such length of quarantine and regulations as the health officer shall enjoin, unless they shall have had on board during the voyage some case of infectious, contagious, or pestilential disease, in which case they shall be subject to such quarantine as the health officers shall prescribe."

The first clause should be considered as imperative. All vessels from any port where, at the time of their departure, any infectious, pestilential, or contagious disease prevails, whether the crew and passengers have been healthy or not, must be quarantined for at least thirty days after arrival, and at least twenty days after discharge of cargo. The second clause admits all vessels from the ports named in the section, and they are detained only for visitation and examination by the health officer, unless they shall have had on board during the voyage some case of disease in the foregoing clause. The third clause, in regard to steam vessels, is entirely discretionary, unless they shall have had on board during the passage any of the prescribed diseases. There is a lazaret.

H

MOBILE.

States.

Yellow fever is the only disease for which quarantine United is imposed. The quarantine is left to the judgment of the medical officer; generally he visits the vessel, and if no disease is apparent among the crew and passengers, he permits her to proceed to the town. If disease has developed itself, the vessel is detained in the bay until the sick are recovered. Small-pox patients are required by the municipal regulations at all times to be sent forthwith to the pest-house. There is a ship moored in the bay, and open for the reception of all cases of sickness. When yellow fever appears in a vessel in the bay, the Board of Health sends down a physician to attend the sick and to examine the vessel.

NEW ORLEANS.

The Act to establish quarantine for the protection of the State bears date March 1855. From on or about the 15th of April, all arrivals from Rio Janeiro, the West Indies, and the Gulf of Mexico are liable to a quarantine of not less than ten days, whether the bill of health from these places be clean or foul. This quarantine continues usually to the end of October or beginning of November. After that date, and until the next proclamation of the Governor, all vessels are allowed to enter the port at once, unless there is actual sickness on board, without reference to their port of departure, or whether any contagious disease exists there or not. The quarantine station is on the Mississippi. Warehouses are built for the purpose of receiving cargoes, and vessels have to discharge their cargoes

United

States.

there. Quarantine was first established at New Orleans in 1821, the Board of Health having full power to enforce its regulations in the most rigid manner. 75

Uruguay.

URUGUAY.

MONTE VIDEO.

The diseases for which quarantine may be imposed are plague, yellow fever, Asiatic cholera, and typhus fever. When the bill of health is suspicious, the quarantine is from three to eight days; when foul, from twelve to eighteen days-counting, in both cases, from arrival. But the Board of Health has the power, and generally exercises it, of modifying the quarantine. For the dis eases mentioned above, and for any other which the Board of Health may decide to be dangerous, such as small-pox, scarlet fever, &c., the quarantines are from twenty to thirty days. There is a lazaret on a small island in the middle of the bay. There is no resident medical officer.

75 The disastrous epidemic of yellow fever, which raged in the United States, and especially in New Orleans, during the last eighteen months, will undoubtedly cause the introduction of new quarantine regulations, for it is asserted to have been proved that, while strict sanitary precautions diminished the number of casualties, complete isolation stopped the disease. It is considered, also, that a thorough supervision of the arrivals, at all ports of the States, is the only means to arrest the future progress of the epi demic.

539

APPENDIX.

No I.

THE PORT SANITARY AUTHORITY OF THE PORT OF

LONDON.

Referred to at pp. 237-241.

NEARLY six years have elapsed since the duties connected with port sanitary work devolved upon the Committee of the Port of London. The responsibilities conferred upon the Corporation as a sanitary authority were duly set forth in a provisional order of the Local Government Board, dated the 17th of September, 1872.

But at that time, from that date, and up to the present time, no specific rules have been framed and issued by the Board as to the manner in which the routine or casualty duties of port sanitary authorities should be performed.

Urban and rural authorities have from time to time been furnished with copies of instructions, official notices, schedules, &c., to assist them in the organization of a novel, and in many respects a difficult, duty.

But port authorities have received no such aid from the State. They are called upon to treat ships as houses in all routine matters relating to the public health; to deal with the importation of epidemic diseases, whether brought from abroad, from other outports, or from the canals of the United Kingdom; to deal promptly with persons affected, and to provide for the fumigation and cleansing of the vessel, and the disinfection or destruction of the bedding and clothing; to superintend the removal of foul cargoes; to examine the drinking water provided for the various crews, both with reference to the place at which it was originally procured, and its present condition; to exercise a general supervision over all school-ships moored in the ports; and to provide for the sanitary safety of all inward-bound emigrants or passengers.