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8
Amid difficulties in working, inevitable at the present time wherever mechanical
contrivances are in use, and when many businesses with which the work of the
Authority is associated have altered their methods and criteria, the whole
Staff has supported your Medical Officer in arranging the due performance of all
the duties of the Port work, with such modifications in the scheme evolved throughout
past years as circumstances demanded.
MEDICAL INSPECTION AT GRAVESEND.
The total number of vessels, 971, medically inspected on arrival has been
naturally less than usual, for reasons which are beyond the scope of this Report.

The proportion shown by the number medically inspected during 1917, to the
total arrivals in that year, is 10.9 per cent., with a total number of 6,460 passengers
and 50,659 of crews.
It will be observed that the ratio of medical inspection does not follow strictly the
number of arrivals.
This follows from the fact that medical inspection is governed by special
requirements from the point of view of epidemiology. Thus, though all foreign
arrivals are visited, inspection is given only to those from infected or suspected ports.
On the vessels so examined 458 cases of infectious disease were found to have
occurred during the voyage.
Of these, 61 were removed to the Port Sanitary Hospital.
Among these cases were some of Malignant Tertian Malaria, on which I have
furnished a few observations elsewhere.
In view of the practical difficulty in obtaining suitable substitutes at the present
time, no leave of absence has been possible to your Medical Officers during the year, and
I have happily to record no absence from sickness. It is to be noted, however, that
present arrangements make no provision in respect to that contingency.