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has previously touched the eyes of a trachomatous patient, and that the disease is of long duration, difficult to cure and difficult to recognize in its initial stages.
I must here repeat the declaration which the Board has constantly made to the Authorities, which is as follows:-
Admitting that trachoma is a disease which develops slowly; that it is difficult to diagnose at its commencement; and that it may readily be confounded with other diseases; if, then, only those persons are regarded as affected with trachoma in whom the disease has already reached its final stage of development, those in whom it is less fully developed will be able to disseminate it amongst us without hindrance, and as the Chinese immigrants penetrate into all parts of the Republic, they would spread the contagion everywhere, so that the disease would at length become as prevalent in this country as it now is in China, in Japan and in Syria.
The course of action suggested in these circumstances by hygienic requirements leans rather to the rejection of persons unaffected with trachoma, than to the acceptance of those in whom the disease may be yet latent, and for this reason the instructions which have been issued to the Medical Delegates are to the effect that all persons believed to be suffering from trachoma, whether the disease be unmistakeably developed, or its existence be merely suspected, are to be refused admittance to the country, and this is the course which the Board has consistently followed.
In the case of infectious or contagious diseases of a chronic character it is not practicable to proceed in the manner which has always been adopted in Mexico and in all parts of the civilized World in regard to vessels arriving with passengers or immigrants suffering from transmissible diseases of an acute character, such as cholera, the plague, and yellow fever. For cases such as these there are always one or more ports provided with a Quarantine Station in which persons actually affected, or believed to be affected with these diseases, can be isolated. This practice cannot be followed in the case of patients afflicted with chronic diseases, the
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