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11
INFECTIOUS DISEASE (See Table IV.)
So far as imported infectious disease is concerned there have been fewer
cases requiring to be dealt with than in previous years, the total number of
cases reported being 153, which is 76.8 below the mean for the preceding
five years, while the number treated in the Port Sanitary Hospital was 73, or
7.8 below the mean for the preceding five years.
The most noticeable reduction is with regard to the number of cases of
Small-pox, Diphtheria, Enteric Fever and Measles.
With regard to Small-pox, the mean annual number for the past five years
treated in the Port Sanitary Hospital is 12.8. During the past year only
five have been admitted, but the quinquennial mean is high by reason of
the cases occurring in 1902, when Small-pox was epidemic in London.
No cases of Diphtheria were admitted. The mean for this disease is low,
being 2*4 only.
Thirty-three cases of Enteric Fever were admitted and treated, which is 6'4
below the mean.
Diphtheria generally occurs on the training ships in the Port, and this
subject is specially dealt with elsewhere.
CHOLERA.
At the close of the year 1903, as indicated in my last Annual Report, this
disease was prevalent in Syria and the Eastern Levant. During the current
year its distribution has been as follows:—In the early part of the year it
invaded many towns in Persia and along the shores of the Persian Gulf as
far south as Muscat. Mesopotamia and Arabia also suffered from epidemics.
It is somewhat singular to note that no cases are known to have occurred
during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca of 1904. The disease appears to have
been carried across the frontier from Mesopotamia during June, and to
have spread rapidly from the latter country. From Persia the disease also
invaded the Russian Transcaspian provinces during July, being probably
conveyed by Russian troops. Thence the disease spread westward along the
railway line towards the Caspian Sea, and across this sea to the port of Baku
in August, and by rail to other towns, including, Batoum, but without giving
rise to any epidemic in the latter port. The disease seems, further, to have
been carried from the Asiatic shores of the Caspian Sea northward to the
estuary of the Volga, up that river as far as Nijni-Novgorod and Yaroslav.
At the present time Cholera is still prevalent in Eastern European Russia,
hence the danger of its introduction to the remainder of Europe, and even to
England, is not absent.