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5. The Brussels Agreement Commission, so-called because it occupies itself with the measures taken
under the International Agreement signed in Brussels in 1924 for the control of venereal disease among
seamen.
The Commission is responsible for compiling the list of clinic centres established in ports throughout
the world at which seamen can obtain free consultation and treatment.
The List 7a, with which you are all acquainted, compiled by the Ministry of Health, is a faithful
reproduction in English of the Paris Office list.
The Commission recently undertook a thorough review of the working of the Brussels Agreement,
and I am glad to say found it highly satisfactory.
6. Last, but not least, among the standing Commissions, is one comparatively recently created, known
as the Quarantine Commission for Aerial Navigation.
This Commission was first set up in 1930, and was entrusted with the preparation of a code of quarantine
procedure for aerial navigation, in view of the rapidly increasing international aerial traffic, and of the
epidemiological problems to which it was giving rise.
The Commission, of which I had the honour to be Chairman for several years, and was, therefore, to
some extent responsible for its work, after much discussion and study, produced what you all now know
as the International Sanitary Convention of Aerial Navigation, 1933.
It may be said, and I believe not a few of you consider, that the Convention is not altogether suitable
in its methods, nor in their application to certain countries, including Great Britain, and I have to accept
the truth of such contentions.
But I would ask you to appreciate the many difficulties and conflicting interests that arise in
preparing any international code of procedure reasonably applicable to all countries and embracing all
circumstances however rare or unusual they may be.
It must be remembered that the measures laid down are maximum measures that may be taken, and
are as much in the interests of the protection of our aircraft travelling abroad from excessive interference,
as in the protection of this country from the invasion of epidemic disease.
In drawing up the Convention the Commission had to employ a considerable amount of guesswork
as to developments in aerial navigation likely to take place in the near future, and, as often happens, their
guesswork has not always hit the mark satisfactorily.
The fact is that aerial navigation has developed so rapidly and extensively, even now covering the
earth with a network of main and subsidiary routes that rules laid down in 1933, even with the best
endeavours to anticipate what would be likely to happen in five years time, are already out of date.
Those of you who have used air lines to and from the Continent from this country during the past
few years, will remember how on one occasion you left or arrived at Croydon, on the next occasion you
found yourself at Gatwick, on a third occasion you returned to Croydon, and only recently, you again
changed and visited Heston.
Is it to be wondered, therefore, that the health administrator has become somewhat confused by these
butterfly changes, and that his code of procedure has been subjected to severe strains.
The Commission has done its best to grapple with the many problems as they have arisen, often without
much success.
I will not trouble you with the international complications that have resulted from the fear of certain
countries, susceptible to yellow fever, of its importation by aircraft, and I will restrict my observations to
two problems of fundamental importance on which the Commission have recently been working.
The first, again not of much interest to this country, is nevertheless of vital importance to others
and to our imperial routes—I refer to the measures for the destruction of mosquitoes and other insect
vectors of diseases in aircraft.
You will at once appreciate the potential dangers of these unauthorised passengers. Fortunately,
thanks largely to the co-operation of the Imperial Airways Company, a valuable pyrethrum insecticide
with a watery basis (a very important point in view of inflammability) has recently been perfected, as has
also apparatus for its dissemination through the cabins and other spaces of the aircraft in a droplet cloud
which, by its rapid diffusion and penetration into all parts of the fusilage, destroys mosquitoes in a very
short space of time.
Furthermore, this watery suspension has no unpleasant effect on the crew and passengers, and can,
therefore, be applied during the voyage, thus saving time—that vital element in aircraft transportation.
The second point to which I will refer touches closely every public health administrator in this country
who has, under his jurisdiction, one or more Customs Aerodromes for foreign traffic.
The Commission at the outset of its deliberations set its face resolutely, and in my opinion quite rightly
so, against the practice of requiring Bills of Health for aircraft, but unfortunately they were unable to
devise a really satisfactory and practical alternative.
What they did was to make use of the journey log-book, which every aircraft must carry, and to
require that any facts relevant to public health which had arisen on the aircraft during the course of its
voyage, any sanitary measures undergone by aircraft before departure or at places of call and information
concerning the appearance in the country from which the aircraft has departed, of any of the five Convention
diseases, should be entered in the journey log-book and thus be available for the information of the health
officers of the aerodromes of arrival.