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at night when the Sanitary Inspector is not on duty or if the ship is proceeding to
dock immediately, the infected quarters are sealed and disinfected after the ship
has berthed. Disinfections of large spaces are usually carried out by private firms
under the supervision of a Sanitary Inspector. A supply of sulphur candles, formalin
lamps, disinfectant solutions and a spray are available for every Sanitary Inspector.
At the Port Sanitary Hospital there is a disinfecting station with spray and slipper
baths and a Washington Lyons Steam Disinfector. Close contacts with infectious,
disease, clothing, bedding, &c., are taken by the boarding launch to this station,
disinfected and then returned to the ship.
(c) Premises for the temporary accommodation of persons for whom such
modation is required for the purposes of the Regulations.
Passengers or crew to be kept under observation are sent to the Port Sanitary
Hospital. So far it has not been necessary to make special provision on a large scale,
and if the necessity did arise the ship would be detained until temporary accommodation
ashore had been found.
(d) Hospital accommodation available for Plague, Cholera, Yellow Fever, Small-pox
and other infectious diseases.
The Port Sanitary Authority maintain a hospital for infectious diseases on the
south bank of the River about a mile below Gravesend. Patients can be landed from
the boarding launch at a jetty and be wheeled straight into the hospital.
At dead low water the launch cannot get to the jetty, but during the flood tide
and for about two hours of the ebb, patients can be landed. It is proposed to raise
half the width of the jetty by about 7 feet at its lower end so that it will be available
during the greater part of the ebb tide. This addition has been rendered necessary
because passenger ships now go alongside Tilbury Landing Stage at any state of the
tide, and therefore infectious cases have sometimes to be removed on the ebb.
It would be very expensive to make provision for the landing of patients at dead low
water, because it would be necessary to extend the jetty to more than twice its
present length.
The hospital buildings comprise a small administrative block and nurses' home,
three ward blocks, a laundry, a disinfecting station, a porter's cottage and a mortuary.
Thirty beds are maintained in readiness. This is ample for all ordinary requirements,
but in case of necessity at least 50 patients could be accommodated. Usually there
are a few cases only, but often of several different diseases, and therefore a cubicle
ward is highly desirable. There is no need to increase the total accommodation,
but it has been recommended that the smallest and oldest ward block should be
demolished and that a cubicle ward with eight cubicles should be erected in its place.
Such a ward would ordinarily accommodate all the patients, leaving one ward block
for use in the event of a small epidemic occurring on board a ship and the other and
most isolated ward block for the accommodation of any cases of Small-pox.
No charge is made for the maintenance and treatment in this hospital of either
passengers or members of the crews from merchant ships of any nationality. A small
charge is made for patients from the Training Ships and the Sea School.
Formerly the hospital was supplied with water from a deep well in the grounds.
For 50 years this well had been perfectly satisfactory, but owing to the increased
pumping from other wells in the neighbourhood the water gradually became brackish,
and the supply from the Gravesend and Milton Water Works Company has now been
piped in.
As the hospital site is below Thames high-water mark, drainage presents
a difficulty. All excreta are received into pails, mixed with sawdust and burnt in an
incinerator. Only domestic waste water is discharged into the river. In view of the
fact that a number of cases of Typhoid Fever are treated in the hospital annually.
this arrangement has obvious advantages.