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"being boarded, an address should be given where they are likely
"to apply when such an eventuality as above stated, is likely to occur.
"The Medical Officer for the Port of London wrote in answer to
"the suggestion: 'I would point out, however, that the address given
"to the Authority is supposed to be the address to which the man is
"going, and I have no means of checking this afterwards.'
"The penalty for wilfully giving a false address to a Port Sanitary
"Authority is £100, but it cannot be considered as wilfully done,
"when a passenger gives an address to the best of his belief.
"In regard to the three passengers who were going about their
"duties, two of them a few days after their arrival went to sea again,
"and here a very serious danger to the world at large, which may
"happen again and again, is apparent, insomuch as a sailor coming
"to this country may have the germs of disease in his system and
"within the ten days of incubation start on a voyage. In the course
"of one's inquiries it was stated that sailors from Spain and Portugal
"take cargoes to such places as Antwerp, and are there paid off, and
"then make for this country in order to obtain another ship.
"Quarantine would appear to be a great safeguard.
"The question of quarantine for all vessels coming from infected
"ports from which the British Isles can be reached in less than ten
"days (five to ten days being the period of incubation of plague) was
"mentioned to the Local Government Board Inspector, but it seems
"that at present the Central Authority does not deem quarantine to
"be advisable."
* "Plague is an acute infectious fever caused by the bacillus pestis of Kitasato
and Yersin, and it is the only known disease of the class which attacks epidemically
and simultaneously man and certain of the lower animals. It differs from some
other infectious maladies in not being a water-borne disease, but the results of investigation
point to the probability of its being rat-borne, at any rate as one of the
vehicles for its spread. The factors for the dissemination and prevalence of the
disease are the presence of the bacillus, susceptible material for it to work upon,
and a suitable environment,"