Page:Senate Reports 1892–’93.djvu/795

{| some of the thicker and more exposed wooden floors are holy-stoned frequently, chloride of lime being used in the process.
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The bilges and bilge-spaces are cleaned and sponged out every week and treated twice a week alternately with solutions of bichloride of mercury and chloride of lime.

The hold is also whitewashed weekly.

The engine-room is kept clean, and the bilge underneath is cleaned every week and treated by disinfectants, while every two days clean sea water is run through the bilge-spaces and pumped out.

As far as practicable the officers and crews of these vessels are composed of acclimated persons, who are prohibited from going ashore or visiting vessels in the harbor without a special permit from the sanitary inspector, and they are individually examined before the vessel leaves the harbor for a port in the United States.

Not one of them has ever been found in the least suffering from any infectious disease now over four years. In the light of what is known of practical disinfection, and the prevention of a vessel becoming invaded by infective disease, it is difficult to see how much more could be done as the methods above mentioned comprise about all that is regarded as most useful in modern maritime sanitation. To enable the sanitary inspector at Havana to be one of the agents in enforcing these restrictions they must not only be required by the port authorities at the vessel’s destination, but desired by the agents, the owners, and those interested in her welfare. Such has been the case in regard to some steamers, and such restrictions have enabled them to continue in active service, without one of their crew or one of their passengers ever suffering from infectious disease, or any reasonable suspicion, or proof that they have in any instance conveyed the specific morbific cause of yellow fever.

It is not pretended that the foregoing restrictive methods can, are, or need be carried out in the harbor of Havana for the security of all ports in the United States, and particularly in winter.

The authorities in Havana are probably, as in most other ports, very sensitive to and jealous of any approach to or assumption of jurisdiction.

We have no treaty with Spain by virtue of which an United States sanitary inspector is invested with any particular authority. He can, however, do very much to assist in preventing the introduction of infectious diseases into the United States by ships, because of the maritime and sanitary regulations of the ports of entry, and of the moral support afforded by the consul general of the United States, and the still more important assistance of the authorities in Washington; and, in case of danger, he can sound the note of warning.

The bill of health which all vessels should and are expected to carry is the consular bill of health, and is made out and signed by the sanitary inspector as well as by the consul. Such information is given in the document as will assist the health authorities at the port of entrance in forming an opinion of the sanitary status of the vessel and port from which she sails, and will aid in determining what treatment she should receive. It comprises the sanitary history of the ship; her sanitary condition; what her exposures have been in the harbor from which she proceeds; what has happened to her there; what measures have been taken, if any, to improve her sanitary state; sanitary condition of cargo, if she carries any, and, when she has ballast, what kind and where taken in; sanitary condition of crew and passengers, stating whether they have had sickness or not; the existence in the port of infectious diseases, as yellow fever, asiatic cholera, plague, small pox, or typhus fever; how