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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SHIP of a Chinese junkmaster would not be
PING.
worth much either as to the existence of disease on board his boat or at the port of departure. Moreover, vessels arriving in England are mostly provided with bills of health from their last port; Chinese junks have no document of that kind to show to the boarding officer. Probably the majority of the Board would say that they did not contemplate that the boarding officer should exercise such important functions as we have suggested above. We cannot suppose, how- ever, that their suggestion is that a boarding officer should go on board ships merely for show and not do anything; but if he has to do anything at all his functions at once be come important. Our own impression is that neither the mover nor seconder had formed a correct appreciation of the real meaning of their resolution,
ment entirely passes our comprehension.. The only mention made of the boardin officer in our local quarantine regula tions
The Sanitary Board at its meeting on Thursday arrived at a decision which will entail on shipping most of the alleged dis- advantages attending medical inspection while only partially realising the undoubted advantages of that system. Instead of hav- ing every vessel boarded by a medical officer before communicating with the shore the boarding is to be effected by an officer without medical training, who, if he has reason to suspect that there is any in- fectious or contagious disease on board, will have to find the Health Officer and re- port to him, and a ship may thus be detained for many hours, possibly only to find that a rash which the boarding officer suspected might possibly be smallpox was only an aggravated form of prickly heat. In the
The matter will probably be referred by long run the loss and delay to shipping the local Government to the Colonial Office would be less by having the inspection and by the latter to its professional advisers. made in the first instance by a doctor There can be little question as to what the instead of a layman, and the difference to decision will be, for it must be clear, we the public would be merely the difference think, to any intelligent and impartial reader, in cost between the salary of a profes- that Dr. CLARK is the only participant. in sional man and that of a non-professional the discussion who has a thorough grasp of man. The Sanitary Board bas proceeded the subject. We do not propose to refer to on the lines of making the practice here Dr. JORDAN's long report, which seems suffi- - correspond with the practice prevailing at ciently disposed of by Dr. CLARK's reply. home, where the visit of the medical officer There are, however, some statements made is dependent upon the report made by the by the President that seem to call for remark Customs boarding officer. As regards and which, if correctly reported, will cause foreign ships, that might easily be done and the authorities at home some astonishment. the system might prove effective. The delay How any similarity can be suggested between to shipping might in some cases be a little medical inspection as it prevails at home and more than if the boarding officer were a the functions discharged in Hongkong by the medical man and the cost to the Govern-boarding officer of the Harbour Depart- ment might be a little less, but the arrange- ment would no doubt prevent the landing of some cases of contagious disease, such as the cases of smallpox brought up with WIL- LISON'S Circus and which were distributed amongst the European hotels of the colony. With regard to junks the system of inspec- tion by a mon-medical man might also be attended with some advantages if honest men could be found to do the work. The boarding officers would be in effect Sanitary Inspectors afloat and they might be as useful in the discovery of cases of disease as are the Sanitary Inspectors ashore. We are surprised, however, that the Hon. F. H. MAY should suggest that this work should be thrown upon the Police. In the first place, it is not Police work, and in the second place, it would at times expose the men engaged in it to even greater tempta- tion than does the working of the gambling law. If a junk with fifty passengers arrived with a case of smallpox on board the captain on behalf of the owners and each individual passenger would be willing. to pay a liberal bribe to the boarding officer not to report the case. If this work of boarding junks to ascertain if there are cases of infectious disease on board is to be undertaken at all men
of a superior class must be appointed for it, and as men of a superior class usually demand superior salaries the saving by not having a medical man would probably be small, if any. If a non-medical man were appointed, although he might do work of some value, the system could not be regarded as corresponding in point of effectiveness with that in force at home, because the conditions are different. In an English port a trained and responsible Customs officer boards a ship commanded by an intelligent European or American captain under legal obligation to give true information, and under such conditions there is no trouble in arriving at the facts, but the word
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[August 26, 1897.
equately discharged by perfunctorily asking question. Furthermore, the regulations cover a wider field than " cholera, yellow fever, or plague," for article 20 provides that when a ship is not ascertained or "certified to be infected, but has passengers on board who are in a filthy or unwhol some condition
the Medical Officer
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of Health may give a certificate that in his opinion it is desirable the per- sons on board should not be allowed "to land unless they satisfy him as to their names, places of destination, and ad- "dresses." A regulation of that kind ap- plied to junks arriving in Hongkong and made somewhat more stringent, so FLS in certain cases to compel the return of the passengers, would be invalu- able. As to the effect on shipping, both steamers and junks, it seems to us that the medical inspection of all vessels on arrival, which would entail very small delay and infinitesimal cost, would be preferable to Dr. ATKINSON's suggestion of proclaiming infected every port at which contagious dis- ease was known to exist, a proceeding which is calculated to excite alarm elsewhere and lead, in the Philippines for instance, to the imposition of rigorous and quite unnecessary quarantine for, it may be, fifteen days.
THE HEALTH OFFICER OF THE PORT.
The suggestion that Dr. JORDANʼs assistaur - should be appointed Deputy Health Officet of the Port is not a solution of the existing difficulty that is calculated to commend itself to the Government. Such a precedent as this would establish would be most un. desirable and calculated to impair the effi- ciency of the public service. If the Health Officer of the Port is to be allowed to make private arrangements with an assistant to do his work for him why should not other Government servants be allowed the same privilege? If the principle were admitted we might conceivably have one set of offi- cials drawing the emoluments of the offices and another set of men, selected without reference to the Government, doing the work, on terms dependent upon a private arrange- ment between themselves and the titular holders of the offices. In effect, however, it is only officials who are allowed private practice who would have any inducement to appoint deputies, and fortunately the number of such officials in Hongkong has been reduced to the Health Officer of the Port and the Crown Solicitor. It would hardly, we think, be suggested that the latter should be allowed to delegate his official functions to an assistant appointed by himself, nor does it seem consonant with sound policy that the Health Officer should be allowed to do so. The scandal that has arisen at Shang- hai in connection with an appointment made on this principle is suggestive of
is in connection with vessels already in quarantine; he has no authority to order a vessel into quarantine on his own responsibility. In article 2 of the local quarantine regulations it is provided that a ship having at the time of arrival or having had during the voyage any contagious disease on board shall fly the quarantine flag and shall remain in quarantine until released by the Heath Officer. There may have been deaths on board, but if the master says he did not know they were from a contagious disease, that is deemed a suficient excuse for his not flying the quaran- tine flag, and the passengers are at liberty to land forthwith, as in the cases of smallpox brought up with WILLISON'S circus, and, it may be, before the visit of the boarding officer. The result is that very few vessels go into quarantine except those which carry a surgeon, a class of vessels for which quarantine re- gulations are the least necessary, as all proper precautions as to isolation, etc., have presumably been taken on board, Dr ATKINSON says also in his minute that the reasons why the same course should not regulations of the Local Government Board be adopted in Hongkong. Every one would refer only to infected ships and those of course very much regret if the interests suspected of being infected and not to all of Dr. JORDAN and the interests of the shipping. The regulations apply to any public were found incompatible, but in such ship from foreign." Nor are the functions case there can be no question as to which of the Customs officer who boards the should prevail. If Dr. JORDAN finds that ship confined to asking the question his private practice is so large as to prevent "Has any case or suspected case of his personally giving the necessary attention "cholera, yellow fever, or plague occurred to his official duties he should be asked during the voyage?" as Dr. ATKINSON to make his selection between devoting his suggests; he is to ascertain, so far as possi- whole time to the public service at an in- ble, whether such ship is infected," and creased remuneration or receiving compensa- although he would ordinarily, in the absence tion in the form of pension or otherwise, of suspicious circumstances, accept the word as might be arranged. Dr. JORDAN by the of the niaster on that point, it is evident terms of his engagment is entitled to private from the term "ascertain so far as possible" practice, and in proposing any alteration that a responsibility is thrown on him which of those terms, or in effecting any reorganisa- would not in all cases be considered ad-ion of the office that might lead to Dr.
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