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8
One of these vessels was the Metropolitan Asylums Board's Hospital Ship
"Atlas." Although this vessel is under the authority of the Asylums
Board, and your Worshipful Committee has no jurisdiction whatever over her
management, she nevertheless is a ship within your district, and when it
became necessary to remove her into dry dock for purposes of repair it clearly
became the duty of your Medical Officer to guard against the possibility of
infection in dock.
The Managers took this obvious view of the case, and accordingly applied
to have her fumigated, which was therefore carried out by your officers.
The operation occupied a whole day and required for its due performance
1½ cwt. of sulphur.
The number of structural alterations necessary for the hygienic improvement
of vessels still continues to increase.
During the half-year no fewer than 389 such improvements, affecting 354
vessels, have been carried out.
The majority of these, while important, involve comparatively trifling
expense, though it is found in practice that where any objection is raised to
the execution of an order, it is invariably one of the smallest and least
difficult to effect.
Of these alterations 130 affected ventilation, 28 water tanks, and 231 lighting
and heating of forecastles.
Perhaps one of the most difficult and at the same time most important
sanitary questions in connection with small vessels is the storage of water.
Wooden casks are so cheap and so readily obtained that the temptation to use
them as receptacles for water is very great.
They are, however, very difficult to keep clean, even when new, and
moreover rapidly decay, causing the water to deteriorate and become foul.
For some time past it has been our policy on all occasions to endeavour to
discountenance their use, and to substitute either slate or iron tanks. The
result has been satisfactory, and proper storage is now becoming far more
usual. I lay stress upon this result inasmuch as it shows the value of steady
and continuous pressure in sanitary work. There can be no question as to
the enormous influence of sanitary surroundings upon the well-being of
seamen as of others, nor as to the certainty of restraining the spread of
infectious disease by maintaining the public health at the highest possible
standard. The main object of a sanitary authority should be the prevention
rather than the treatment of disease. It is now generally conceded that, while
too great stress cannot be laid upon the importance of supervision of all
vessels arriving in a port, yet, after all, the main protection of a country