CO885-5 — Page 527

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

C.O. 885/5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

Banks.

Proposed substitutes.

Dispensary.

Compounders' and Inter- preters' cabin.

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a door should be cut in the bulkhead, it should be kept locked, and the key be always in the possession of the Surgeon Superintendent or of the compounder whom he appoints to take charge of the hospital, and in the case of either being occupied by cases of infectious disease, a blanket sprinkled with carbolic acid or other disinfectant could be hung over the door as a "portiere," and prevent all danger of infection. These Hospitals are fitted with " bunks " or standing bed places, varying in number according to the size of the deckhouse and the number of people on board, and are fitted with mattresses which are of the commonest, soon get saturated, and have to be thrown overboard before half the voyage is over, and the bunks themselves are clumsy, nud take up a great deal too much room, and the spaces below them, even with the greatest care, become receptacles for filth, and the best of compounders will store all sorts of trash in and below them when not occupied by patients. For these I should propose to substitute light iron frames with sacking which could be removed, thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, and replaced as often as necessary, and the frames could be made to fold up against the sides of the Hospital when not in use, and with end and side pieces to fold down so as to allow the freest access to patients. Of course I shall be met here by the question of expense, but I do not think that should be allowed to count for much when the sanitary advantages of this arrangement are taken into consideration; and besides, the wooden bunks should be destroyed after each voyage, if the Rules are carried out, and those delightful, sweet-smelling mattresses would not have to be supplied. In some ships a cowl- headed ventilator is fitted through the roof of each compart- ment, but this is not absolutely necessary if the hospital is arranged as above described; but, if there, each should be fitted with a proper diffuser like those in the 'tween decks.

The Dispensary should always be in a separate place, and for this purpose a cabin under the poop, and opening directly on the quarter-deck is the most convenient. The chest which contain the medicines from Apothecaries' Hall have a dispensing table attached to them, and when these are put up and properly lashed to the bulkheads, all the essentials are there except one or two shelves and about 24 racks for bottles of the medicines which are to be kept made up, and There should be a these the ship's carpenter will put up.

fixed washstand with tap below for running off water, and a good filter is a very useful addition.

It will be found very convenient to have the Compounders' and Interpreters' cabin adjacent to, and if possible opening

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into, the Dispensary, and the Surgeon Superintendent should satisfy himself that it is of sufficient cubic space for two people, well ventilated and fitted with a proper washstand and bed places or "bunks," and these supplied with good mattresses and pillows, and a sufficient supply of bed clothes for the different climates through which the ship must pass; also a couple of stools or chairs, which can be bought for a few annas in the bazaar, The Surgeon Superintendent will do well to see that his Compounders' comfort is decently pro- vided for, and that the contractor supplies these articles, as these men are as a class most deserving, and if obliged, through the negligence of the contractor, to supply these necessaries themselves, are obliged to sell them at a loss or throw them away on arrival in the colony as they would be mere incumbrances on their homeward voyage, and this loss they should never be obliged to undergo.

The next point is the closets, of which two blocks are Closets. provided for the men forward and two aft for the women and children. The construction and number of compartments in each are laid down in par. 7, p. 88, of the Rules, but, instead of doors for each compartment, a curtain should be supplied stretching along the front of each block, which can be rolled up when that block is not in use; and this curtain should have a bar sewed into the bottom, and this again should be kept tight down by another bar fitted into a couple of cleats nailed to the end stanchions in front of the black so as to prevent the curtain from being raised by the wind or swaying to and fro when the ship rolls. The closets for the women should be as far forward in the waist of the ship as the position of the openings in the bulwarks, through which the discharge shoot for the soil must pass, will allow, and in all the closets the seats should be as low as they can be to allow a proper pitch for the discharge shoot, and there should be no angles or corners in the zine with which they are lined for the soil to lodge in. These closets have entrance both before and behind, but I always have the forward entrance of the women's closet closed for reasons which it is not necessary to specily here, but which will be apparent enough to anyone making a voyage in one of these ships. Other styles of closets have been in use from time to time, but I believe those described above are the most approved, and I think the advantage of them over those with doors and of the seats being low was strongly shown by a misadventure which occurred in one of my voyages; a woman being pitched by the rolling of the ship out of the closet on to the deck, and, besides the "oncon. vanience to the woman herself and to those who saw her

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