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section vi
PUBLIC HEALTH (SHIPS) REGULATIONS, 1952/1961
1. List of Infected Areas (Regulation 6) — No change.
2. Radio Messages — No change.
3. Notification otherwise than by Radio (Regulation 14(1)(b)) — No change.
4. Mooring Stations (Regulations 22 to 30) —
There has been considerable change in the use of the berths designated as Mooring Stations
and it has been agreed with the Harbour Authority that the Mooring Stations appointed by the
Medical Officer of Health in accordance with the provisions of Regulations 22 to 30 of The
Public Health (Ships) Regulations, 1952 to 1961 shall be the most suitable berths available at the
time.
THE BOARDING MEDICAL OFFICER
(With acknowledgements to "Scottish Public Services" — Jan. 1963)
The duties of a Port Health Authority have steadily widened since the war, the latest
additions being in relation to clean air and Commonwealth immigrants. At the same time the
world wide incidence of quarantinable disease has greatly decreased, so that cases now arriving
in our seaports are relatively few and far between. This has led port health authorities to consider
the strength and deployment of their staff, and particularly to re-examine the methods by
which they carry out the original quarantine responsibility.
The common practice over many years has been to employ doctors to board, on arrival and
often by launch, all vessels that were potential carriers of cases of plague, smallpox, cholera,
typhus and yellow fever. (Relapsing fever is a comparatively recent addition.)
Stringency of international rodent control, and improvements in preventive medicine and
sanitation in endemic areas, allied with our geographical position, have now virtually reduced
the danger for Britain to smallpox alone. Indeed the whole of Europe is now officially regarded
as completely free from all quarantinable disease, and ships from European ports are largely
exempt from Port Health Regulations.
Some port health authorities have progressively modified their control measures. "On
arrival" has become interpreted as after berthing. Doctors have been partially replaced by other
staff, and routine inspections reduced to "sampling". In the seaports there have been, so far,
no disastrous consequences.
Why then does the Port of London continue with the "old fashioned" routine? Primarily
because we believe that the prevention of the importation of disease is still a port health
authority's most important function, and that the old proven practices still offer the most likely
means of attaining this object, especially when operated with every modern means of
communication and diagnosis.
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