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In dealing with the details of medical inspection, attention is drawn to the
further increase in the number of vessels it has been found necessary to
examine in view of the continued presence of cholera in Europe.
Owing to the abolition of the Coast-guard at Sheerness, the Medical Officer
stationed there has to examine the vessels in the Customs boat, an arrangement
which, up to the present, has acted very well.
The Sanitary Inspection of Shipping has been well maintained in spite of
the enormous increase in relation to Food Inspection, in the course of which
there have been important developments.
The most important of these appears to be the discovery of the presence,
in certain imported frozen beef, of a parasite, which was found to infest
certain portions of the fore-quarters of beef to a considerable extent. One of
the effects of this parasite was to cause in the meat numbers of cysts or
swellings which, on being opened, were found to contain quantities of foullooking
matter or lymph. Many of these cysts were quite large, and there
was little difficulty in your officers coming to the conclusion that the meat
was entirely unwholesome and unfit for the food of man. It was soon found
that beef is arriving in this country in large quantities, and the work of
examining these quarters, involving, as it did in most instances, cutting in
order to locate the parasite, called for all the resources at the disposal of your
Committee. In the end the result has been an arrangement with the Commonwealth
of Australia whereby it is hoped that no more of this infested meat
will be imported into this country. The general conclusions to be drawn in
connection with food examination would appear to show that this branch of
the work is liable, at any time, to considerable pressure from the introduction
of extraordinary circumstances from without.
The presence of Plague in dead rats continues to be demonstrated from
time to time in various parts of the country, and the history of those outbreaks
which have occurred among rats in London shows that careful observation
continues to be kept. Any rats found dead, for which no obvious cause is
shown, are examined bacteriologically with a view to establishing whether or
not they have died from plague. So far the precautions adopted have been
quite effectual in preventing any spread of the disease.
With regard to Infectious Diseases generally, the number of cases is somewhat
less than was reported during the previous year.
With regard to the arrival of Alien Passengers in the port, particulars of
these arrivals are set out in the form of a table, together with the number of
passengers who were rejected by the Medical Inspectors on grounds of medical
defect.
Nuisances from smoke and other sources have received the careful attention
of your Committee, and in those cases where legal proceedings were ordered,
convictions were duly obtained.