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Here she laid for six days, returning to Catacola on the 15th, and remaining
there till the 20th, whence she again went to Patras.
She finally left Patras on 27th October and reached Gravesend on 11th
November, the patient being taken ill on 11th November. It is clear from
these dates that the infection was derived either from Patras or Catacola,
though it is stated that the patient did not go on shore at either of these
ports.
On the 27th December the steam ship "Annie Ainslie" arrived from
Burriana and Valencia. The day after a seaman was taken ill and was supposed
to be suffering from a cold. On the 31st the case was diagnosed as small-pox
and reported. The Port Sanitary Hospital at that time was not available, and
the patient was therefore sent to the Asylum Board's Hospital and the usual
precautions taken.
The ship arrived at Burriana on the 10th and left again on the 14th,
leaving again for "Valencia, which she reached on the same day and left the
next morning (15th). The patient had been on shore at Valencia, and here,
no doubt, the disease was contracted.
The history of the steam ship "Brazilian," partly narrated in my last
Report, as now completed presents extraordinary and interesting features.
She came in on the 7th May, 1891, when a severe case of confluent smallpox
was removed to the Port Sanitary Hospital, the vessel fumigated, and
vaccination offered to the officers and crew, but declined by all.
She left London again on the 16th May, arriving at Montreal on 6th June.
On the 19th May the master was attacked (12 days after the removal of
first case), the fourth engineer on the 23rd, and an apprentice on the 26th.
These were all taken to the St. Laurence Quarantine Station on the
30th May.
Here the crew were compulsorily re-vaccinated, which, unfortunately, could
not be enforced in this country, and the vessel detained six days for
fumigation.
On the 7th, the day after arriving at Montreal, the steward was attacked
and sent to hospital. Leaving Montreal on 11th, the engineer and apprentice
were taken on board as convalescent, but four days later the apprentice was
taken ill with what appeared to be a second attack. She reached London on
24th June, when she was again fumigated.
This in itself is a remarkable history, as showing how the disease may be
conveyed from Buenos Ayres to London, and from London to Montreal, in