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58
misleading inasmuch as he subsequently proceeded to the Borough of
Greenwich, and that it was therefore impossible to keep observation on
him until after the disease had developed and was notified in the usual
course; that that Council are of opinion that under such circumstances
a great risk of spreading the disease arises which might possibly occasion
an epidemic; that they think the matter is so serious as to warrant a
representation being made to the Local Government Board ; that they
have, therefore, addressed a communication to the Board urging them
to promote legislation in order to make it a penal offence for a person
to give a false address in similar circumstances to those above related,
and expressing the hope that the City Council will see their way to
take similar action.
In July, 1903, I communicated with the Local Government Board
on the subject of persons arriving at ports in infected ships, or coming
from infected ports, and pointed out that in a large proportion of the
cases of such persons reported to me as proceeding to the City, I had
been unable to trace the persons at the addresses given; that very often
the address was simply a bank or a club, and sometimes a Government
office was given as an address; that probably in the majority of
instances no harm resulted, but that in the event of their being any
real danger I thought it should be brought to the Board's attention
that the system as carried out was extremely defective, and that if
relied upon as part of the first line of defence against the importation
of infectious disease it might be a positive danger. The Board's reply
directed attention to the Board's General Order dealing with the
matter, and stated that it was open to the City Council to take
proceedings against persons found to have wilfully neglected to comply
with Article 15 of the Order.
In the course of my reply to the Board's letter, I expressed the
opinion that the want of knowledge of the address of such persons
would debar the Council from taking any proceedings, and- I concluded
by stating that I understood that certain of the Port Sanitary
Authorities hand the passengers a card on which the terms of the
Board's General Order were prominently displayed, and suggested that
if all the Port Sanitary Authorities did not follow that practice they
should be instructed to do so.
In view of the fact that the difficulty of tracing such passengers
from the addresses given by them still continues, the Council wrote
calling the Local Government Board's attention to the facts contained
in the correspondence above referred to.
The total number of notifications received from Port Sanitary
Authorities in 1905 was, smallpox, 194; plague, 17; cholera, 90.