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Unfortunately much of this information and particularly information concerning the health of the
regions whence the passengers have come is not, in practice, entered into the log-book for the simple reason
that it is not practicable to do so and some other means will have to be devised to meet the case. I believe
the United States Government has hit upon a happy and at the same time simple solution.
At present, all aircraft coming up the East coast of South America, collecting passengers who may have
been in contact with yellow fever, are required to furnish such passengers with a simple form of declaration
in which the passenger records the place he has stayed in during the six previous days and nights before
embarkation.
If, on arrival in the United States he is found to have stayed in a place suspected of yellow fever he is
put under surveillance for the balance of the six days following his departure from that place.
I think a similar declaration will, sooner or later, have to be required of all passengers and crew travelling
on international aircraft routes ; not for six days, however, but for fifteen days.
These declarations are collected by the steward or the assistant pilot shortly before arrival and are
handed to the Boarding Medical Officer at the aerodrome.
The Boarding Medical Officer looks through the declarations and picks out any passengers he may
have reason to suspect, giving them special attention.
It is not claimed that this system is fool-proof for there is nothing to prevent a passenger, coming from
say a typhus infected area, booking his passage to a certain point and then taking a ticket from that point
onwards. In this way or by making a false declaration he can easily get round any control that may be
possible, unless it is eventually decided internationally that some suitable entry should be made on his
passport. Most countries, however, are, at present, averse to the entry of any information on a passport,
other than of a diplomatic nature.
Before terminating this brief and somewhat sketchy review of the present activities of the Paris Office
I must refer to two of its main activities.
First the system of rapid notification by the countries signatory to the International Sanitary
Conventions of information concerning the outbreak or continued existence of the five Convention diseases,
plague, cholera, typhus, yellow fever and smallpox, and the distribution of this information among all
other signatories.
This system has grown up since 1926 and has become increasingly comprehensive, rapid and efficient
every year.
The Paris Office notifies outbreaks of serious epidemics by telegraph, otherwise the information is sent
by weekly bulletin and from it is compiled, in the Ministry of Health for the use of this country and the
British Empire, what you all know as the Weekly Eecord of Infectious Disease.
The second general activity is that imposed upon it by Article 10 of its Statutes, to wit, the publication
of a monthly bulletin which shall comprise especially:—
1. Laws and general or local regulations promulgated in the various countries respecting
transmissible diseases ;
2. Information respecting the spread of infectious diseases ;
3. Information respecting the works executed or the measures taken for improving the healthiness
of localities;
4. Statistics dealing with public health;
5. Bibliographical notes.
The Paris Office has faithfully carried out this duty and publishes each month an excellent and most
informative bulletin of epidemiological and relevant information.
One of the principal features of this bulletin, and I venture to say a unique one, for I have not seen it
so fully given in any other publication, is the section giving a summary of the various Conventions, laws
and health regulations recently put into force in various countries.
The bulletin has not received the publicity it deserves largely because it is at present published only
in French, but I hope that arrangements will be made in the near future for an English edition which I
am sure will command a wide circulation.
I should now like to devote such time as I have left to a brief survey of the work which the Paris
Office has been called upon to carry out in the immediate future.
But before doing so I must refer to an important Conference which has just taken place in Paris under
the auspices of the French Government, at the express desire of the Egyptian Government, to give effect,
if possible, to the long felt wish of that Government to abolish the International Quarantine Board of
Egypt.
That Board, which has been in existence for over one hundred years, carries out the measures laid
down in Parts II and III of the 1926 Convention, that is, all the quarantine measures applicable to traffic
with Egyptian ports, on the Suez Canal and to the Pilgrimage.