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7
PORT OF LONDON SANITARY OFFICES,
51, KING WILLIAM STREET,
GREENWICH, S.E.
TO THE WORSHIPFUL THE PORT OF LONDON
SANITARY COMMITTEE.
Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present herewith my Annual Report for the year
1910, being the ninth of the series.
In a general review of the work of your officers, as shown by the tables
accompanying this report, several points become prominent.
In the first place the number of vessels arriving from foreign ports shows
for the first time in recent years a slight upward tendency, though it is
still substantially below the mean of the preceding ten years—(Tables I.-II.).
All of these vessels were visited by your Medical Officers.
The efficiency of the work of your Sanitary Inspectors, as shown by
Tables III., IV., XXXI. and XXXII., has been well maintained, notwithstanding
the strain put upon this branch of the work by urgent developments
in connection with the inspection of foreign meat.
With regard to Infectious Diseases (Table V.), I pointed out last
year that there was a noticeable reduction in the number of cases reported
on incoming ships, and also in the number admitted to the Hospital.
The reduction is continued in a marked manner during the past year.
I have dealt at length under separate headings with the movements of
Cholera, Yellow Fever and Plague in various parts of the world, showing
how the Port of London by reason of its universal foreign trade is especially
exposed at times to invasion by one or other of these diseases, and Cholera in
particular, while as regards Plague, which has been demonstrated to be a
disease of rats, I have given some details of outbreaks of the disease amongst
these creatures in different localities, with particulars of the precautions
adopted in the Port of London for their destruction.
The principal Infectious Diseases have also been separately dealt with,
though during the year under review there has been in regard to these, little
or nothing of public interest to record.
The work of Food Inspection under the Regulations relating to the
Inspection of Foreign Meat and Unsound Food, has increased to a remarkable
extent, and has been a serious drain upon administrative resources. I have