BRITAIN’S HEALTH AT STAKE

Evening Star, Issue 20362, 19 December 1929, Page 13

BRITAIN’S HEALTH AT STAKE

KEEPING OUT DISEASE AND BAD FOOD VIGILANT MEDICAL GUARD AT WORK. London is the biggest port in the world. It is a gateway from the seven seas, and to its docks come, every year thousands of vessels, with human freight from all parts of the globe, and every conceivable kind of foodstuff. How is the health of London—and through it the country—safeguarded? How is it protected from sea-borne disease and bad food A little band of medical officers and food inspectors constitute the sanitary barrier which keeps London plague-free, and ensures that only the best food reaches consumers.

The work of this ever-vigilant guard goes on night and day, so quietly that only those who have experienced it know how efficient is the organisation, and how complete is the investigation. While London sleeps vessels are being boarded in the Thames miles down the river, >■) their bills of health examined, their logs scrutinised, and, where suspicion exists, all persons on board mustered and inspected. The food inspectors submit to rigorous examination the meat, fruit, vegetables, provisions, grain and other foodstuffs which enter the docks. Where material is condemned, it is destroyed only if it cannot be used for somo useful purpose. £22,000 A YEAR TASK.

The medical supervision is so efficient that last year not a single case of infectious disease evaded the barrier, while 6,018 tons of unsound food were destroyed. To safeguard London’s health and food costs about £22,000 a year; the work is carried out by the Port Sanitary Authority. Six medical officers are on duty day and night to examine the passengers and crews of vessels arriving from overseas; twelve inspectors arc constantly engaged in examining every kind of foodstuffs arriving in the port.

Moored off Gravesend, about twentysix miles below London Bridge, is the hull:, Hygeia, an outpost, as it were, of the authority’s defences. From here a medical officer accompanies the Customs officer in a motor launch, and boards all vessels on their way up the Thames.

Every case of reported sickness during the voyage is examined and investigated, and in the case of certain Eastern ports, always regarded officially as “infected,” ships which have come from them are subjected to very strict scrutiny. Vessels going up the Medway are dealt with by a medical _ officer from Sheerness, who visits within twelve hours of arrival every vessel which has come > from a foreign port, and which remains within the jurisdiction of the authority. ALERT OFFICERS. Those medical officers are on the lookout for signs of plague, cholera, typhoid, smallpox, or yellow fever, and so thorough is the organisation that the possibility of infected persons entering, the country is remote. If a case of infection is detected the sufferer is at once removed by motor launch to the authority’s isolation hospital on the river bank just below Denton. Here are also taken, for observation, immediate “contacts.” In some cases the names and addresses of passengers and crew are taken and forwarded to the medical officers of health of the districts to which they are proceeding. Infected quarters on vessels are thoroughly disinfected, and clothing and other effects are sterilised. Last year there were examined 75,501 passengers, 57.173 sailors, 44.181 aliens. From these 824 cases of illness were discovered. Notorious as a plague carrier, a rat gets short shrift. Many are the methods adopted to prevent the passage of rats between ships and shore, equally numerous are the means adopted to kill them. The authority’s staff have “bagged ” as many as 3,000 a month.