Page:Senate Reports 1892–’93.djvu/796

{| many cases, and how many weekly deaths from them etc.; and all pertinent information which may assist the health authorities at the port of destination.
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To enable the inspector to state intelligently as to the truth of what he certifies, it is clear that he must visit and inspect the vessel and examine the crew. Captains, agents, and owners now understand this and ask him to go aboard and do whatever is necessary, that they may be provided with the bill of health. When the inspector is invited aboard it is apparent there can be no well-founded complaint of assumption of jurisdiction, however foreign the vessel may be.

He then inspects the vessel in all parts—hold, bilge, the dunnage, ballast, water-closets, forecastle, cabin, etc.—and indicates what should be done.

In some instances he is asked what can be done to make the vessel more acceptable to the health authorities at the port of destination.

There are quite a number of lines which are not only willing but anxious to do everything reasonable within their power to prevent yellow fever getting aboard, or if there is danger of its being aboard in fomites to disinfect and destroy the infectious agent at once.

Such lines as Ward’s, Morgan’s, Plant’s, and Alexander’s are excellent examples. They not only keep their vessels away from wharves and dangerous places, but are willing to cleanse and to use disinfectants in their vessel, cargo, ballast, bilge, etc.

Others are indifferent to exposure, sacrifice comparative safety to convenience, lay during the very dangerous season of the year at wharves, with their ship’s company going any and every where they please, and say, “Oh, we will take our chances;” and that class of captains are ever ready to deny that they have had or have now any sickness aboard.

The key to the sanitary condition of the port of Havana in relation to infectious diseases lies largely in the hospitals, public and private, of which there are eight or ten.

Here the inspector is very vigilant, and here he will usually encounter the sick from vessels and can learn what ships they are from, etc. Frequent visits are made to these institutions.

From what has been stated in this paper it would seem that vessels going to the United States from the port of Havana can, for the convenience of bills of health, be classified into four different classes:

The first class, or “good,” would include those vessels which remain in the open bay, keep their crews aboard, and, in short, observe rigidly all the methods of modern maritime sanitation. In them the sanitary history, condition, cargo, crew, and passengers are all marked good. Sailing vessels would take neither cargo, ballast, nor passengers from Havana. It is believed that the most of such vessels could enter ports in the United States at any season without imperiling the health of these ports.

Second class, or “fair,” includes such vessels as do not go to wharves, neither are they particular about the use of disinfectants or extreme cleanliness. These may go to wharves during winter months, in which case they disinfect and cleanse thoroughly.

Third class, which are indicated by “fair only,” or “a little suspicious,” are those vessels which go to wharves but have not had yellow fever aboard in consequence. Fair only, or a little suspicious, are intended to be synonymous terms.

Fourth class—“suspicious,” sometimes “evidently infected,” are those which go to wharves in the dangerous season which are known or believed to be infected, or those vessels which, although in the open bay,