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28
PORT OF LONDON SANITARY AUTHORITY,
Port Sanitary Regulations, 1933.
Penalty for Breach of Regulations, £100.
Notification of Change of Address within 14 Days of
Disembarkation.
Having disembarked from the s.s.
on (date) my address from (date)
to (date) will be as under.
Name and Full Address in Block Letters. Name
No. or Name of House
Street
Postal District
County
Signature
This Card may be sent through the post unstamped, but if it is enclosed in
an Envelope Postage must be Prepaid.
Each half is addressed to the Medical Officer of Health of the Port of London.
The section on which the immediate address is written is collected by the Medical
Officer when he inspects the passenger. The section for notification of change of
address is on the "Business Reply Card" system so that the passenger need not
stamp it.
The importance of forwarding to Medical Officers of Health without delay the
names and addresses of contacts proceeding to other districts is fully appreciated, and
the clerical Staff work continuously until this task has been completed. Probably
few Medical Officers of Health realise the labour involved when there are seven or
eight hundred passengers and crew proceeding to destinations scattered all over the
British Isles.
There is no difficulty in the case of contacts going to the towns, but in the case of
those going to rural areas it is necessary to find out first the sanitary district in which
the place is situated and then to ascertain the address of the Medical Officer of Health.
I have been asked to indicate on the notifications the vaccinal state of the contacts,
but in the first place this would frequently delay the posting of the notifications and in
the second place the information would not relieve the Medical Officer of Health of
the responsibility of exercising surveillance, and so would not save him any trouble.
The efficiency of the ''Business Reply Card'' system for the notification of
change of address may be illustrated by the experience in regard to the case of the
ss. "Rajputana," on which a case of Small-pox had occurred and which arrived in
the Port of London on the 26th May:—
Passengers. Crew.
Number of cards issued 160 129 = 289
„ of persons concerned 364 129 = 493
„ of cards returned notifying change of address 57 6 = 63
„ of persons concerned 98 6 = 104
„ of Medical Officers of Health notified 179
Two addresses only could not be traced by the local Medical Officer of Health.
One of these was corrected next day, but the other could not be traced.
What, if any, arrangements have been made for:—
(a) Premises and waiting rooms for medical examination.
Medical examinations are usually carried out on board ship, but there are rooms
for the medical inspection of aliens on Tilbury Landing Stage and West Street Pier,
Gravesend.
(b) Cleansing and disinfection of ships, persons and clothing and other articles.
When cases of infectious disease are removed from ships on arrival during the
day time the Sanitary Inspector on the lower district puts the infected quarters under
fumigation with Sulphur Dioxide or Formalin, if he has time. If a case is removed