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11
ANTI-CHOLERA INOCULATIONS.
In August your Medical Officer received a notification from the Ministry of Health
that Shipping Companies might ask for inoculation against Cholera in crews trading
with the Persian Gulf.
The subject matured, and, between 26th August and 15th September,
137 members of crews of three vessels were immunised by means of vaccine supplied
by Messrs. Parke, Davis and Co.
Charges for the services rendered, approved by your Worshipful Committee,
were paid by the owners of the vessels concerned.
PLAGUE.
The ss. "Plutarch" arrived in the Port of London on the 26th June, 1927, with
a grain cargo. The voyage of the vessel was as follows :—
Glasgow—12th March, 1927.
Liverpool—13th to 19th March.
Bahia (Brazil)—7th to 8th April—discharging cargo.
Eio de Janeiro—11th to 22nd April—discharging cargo.
Santos—23rd to 29th April—discharging.
Eio Grande—2nd to 5th May—completed discharging.
Eio Grande to Buenos Aires—in ballast—7th May.
Eosario—8th to 17th May—loading cargo.
Buenos Aires—18th to 28th May—loading cargo.
(At Buenos Aires—18th-22nd—lay alongside ss. " Lassell ").
Las Palmas—17th to 18th June—bunkering.
Arrived Gravesend 26th June.
The cargo was first worked on the afternoon of the 28th June, and on the morning
of the 29th June an Inspector of this Authority ascertained and reported mortality
amongst the rats, in one of which, submitted to the Seamen's Hospital, Connaught
Eoad, a gram negative bi-polar bacillus morphologically indistinguishable from
bacillus pestis was demonstrated to me. A guinea-pig inoculated on this day
subsequently died of Plague, thus confirming the cause of the mortality. Two further
rats, recently dead, when sent to the Ministry of Health, showed the same cause of
death. No case of illness had occurred among the crew.
Thirty rats were reported to have been trapped at sea, and in the search for rat
mortality 35 rats were found dead. Customary precautions were immediately observed.
The engines had by this time been opened out and the crew reduced. It seemed to be
expedient that the ship should be unloaded as quickly as possible, with all precautions
against the transference of rats from the ship, more especially as it was possible to
moor the vessel off in the centre of the dock bay, the two head mooring ropes and
a ladder over the bow forming the only connection with the shore or other craft during
non-working hours. It was further satisfactory that the sheds about this dock bay
contained no material attractive to rats.
Lighters and barges were examined before coming alongside the ship to ascertain
their state as regards rats, and fumigation was carried out where evidence of rats in
these was found.
In the discharge of bagged grain every bag put overboard was surveyed with a
view to the possibility of the presence of a rat therein. In dealing with the bulk grain
by means of elevators, bagging of the grain on discharge was not permitted; the fall
of the grain into the barges could thus be watched against the transference of a rat,
dead or alive.
On deciding to discharge the ship in dock it became possible to pay off the crew.
A temporary cessation of work on the ship, together with the facts that the upper
'tween decks had been largely emptied of cargo and that the lower holds,, save in the
hatchways, where bagged cargo was placed, were filled with bulk grain, suggested
the possible large efficacy of a preliminary fumigation of the holds before discharge.
This tended to greater safety, and on various counts your Medical Officer decided
that the liquid hydrocyanic acid method would be the best possible for this preliminary
fumigation. Your Medical Officer had the great advantage of consultation with the