The past and present condition of public hygiene and state medicine in the United States.

  • Abbott, Samuel Warren, 1837-1904.
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The past and present condition of public hygiene and state medicine in the United States. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Quarantine The measures existing in the United States for preventing the introduction of infectious diseases from other countries into the United States, through its principal sea-ports, are pro- vided chiefly by laws enacted by those states which are on the sea-coast, and by certain statutes of the general government which confer authority for inspection on the marine hospital service, a department of the United States treasury (act of February 15, 1893). By this act the chief official of this department is required to examine the quarantine regulations of state and municipal boards of health, and to cooperate with these authorities in preventing the introduction of disease from abroad, as well as from one state to another (act of March 27, 1890). United States officers in foreign ports are also required to publish regulations for securing the best sanitary condition of vessels, cargoes, passengers and crews departing for the United States. The topics which are treated in the United States quarantine regulations are: The inspection of vessels with the passengers and crews. Diseases quarantinable. These are cholera, yellow fever, small-pox, typhus fever and leprosy1. Requirements at quarantine. Nature of infected vessels; disinfection of vessels and cargoes, and of personal effects of crew and passengers; detention of passengers, and measures to be taken on the Mexican and Canadian frontiers. It is worthy of note, with reference to Asiatic cholera, that notwithstanding its frequent prevalence in transatlantic coun- tries, it has never gained a foothold in the United States since 1873, while, previous to that date, outbreaks had usually followed every great European epidemic. The first instance on record of the enforcement of marine quarantine in the United States, was the detention of a vessel which arrived at Philadelphia, from England, in April 1728. 1) To these may now be added bubonic plague.