[Report 1942] / Medical Officer of Health, Cardiff County Borough & Port.

  • Cardiff (Wales). County Borough Council.
Date:
1942
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1942] / Medical Officer of Health, Cardiff County Borough & Port. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/94
    The new Infestation Order (1943) made by the Ministry of Food nnder the Defence (General) Regilations, 1939, gives topical interest to the routine work of rat destruction in the City and Port of Cardiff. Before the war, local aiff horities and the public generally were invited annually by the Ministry of Agriculture to make a given week “ rat week,” an invitation which in Cardiff local government circles we ignored, because we claimed that with us “ every week is rat week.” The ffgiires given in the reports of the Chief Port Sanitary Inspector, Mr. T. D. Hill (see p. 43), and of the Chief Sanitary Inspector of the City, Mr. W. G. Pyatt (see p. 50), prove the strength of this contention. Thus, at the ])ort around the docks and in ships, 3,411 rats were destroyed by the consumption of poison baits (211,341 baits laid), by gassing, or by trapping. In the town, 1,327 rats were caught by trapping, and 46,291 baits were laid (in sewers and elsewhere), of which 21,022 were eaten. From the nature of the terrain at the port it is easier to discover corpses of rats that have eaten poisoned baits than in the town where baits cire laid for the most part in sewers and in private dwellings. Similarly, circumstances in the town call for trai)ping and not gassing as the principal alternative to the laying of baits as a means of rodent control. The emphasis on motive for rat killing is also different in the two areas. In the town prevention of food waste is the chief consideration, but at the port the primary aim has always been to exterminate the black rat on ships and at the docks because it carries the flea which is the plague vector. The Port Health Service. The method of choice for destroying rats at the port, and especially on ships, is fumigation with hydrogen cyanide. By international agreement foreign-going ships must be fumigated every six months unless exempted by the Port Medical Officer of Health. The fumigation kills not only the rats, fleas and lice concerned in the spread of plague and typhus fever, but also the bedbugs and cockroaches that may trouble the sleej) of seafarers. Immediately prior to the war, statistics showed that at all principal ports throughout the civilised world the rat pojiulation both on ships and at ports was markedly on the decline, so making the world correspondingly safe against the spread of jffague from one country to another. At the outbreak of war we were nearing the world-wide adoption of measures to prevent the spread of yellow fever by mosquitoes harboured in air-planes. As a ship reaches port, amongst the first to board her are Port Health Officers who want to see if she has a “ clean bill of health.” Doubts will be raised if they find the slightest suspicion of present or past illness affecting human beings, ships’ jiets or rats, or if she comes from a part of the world where plague, typhus, cholera, smallpox or yellow fever are known to be rife. Sick persons are taken ashore to the fever hospital, those who have been in contact with them are vaccinated in case of smallpox, deloused in case of typhus, but in any event are allowed to leave only after they have given the names and addresses of their destinations which are then forwarded to the Medical Officers of Health of the districts concerned, who will keep them under observation until it is sure that they will not develop the di.sease that had attacked the shipmates they left behind. Meanwhile, the ship and its contents will have been fumigated or its water supply changed after cleaning and disinfection of the water tanks. To honour international health obligations, equally strict precautions are taken at the ports to prevent dangerous infectious disease getting out of this country, but the duties of the port health service do not end there. They must guard against the entry into this country of aliens, undesirable from the health point of view, and of diseased or unwholesome or poisonous food. In war-time also they must be able to deal with foodstuff's that have become taintc-d by enemy gas attack. Last, but not least, they must watch over the cleanliness, freedom from vermin and sanitary conditions generally of the living quarters on board ship, for it must be remembc'red that the sailor lives on his job. Port health services have developed through the years with the growth of the mercantile marine. Little is heard of them, but . they are doing a good job—and proud of it, too.