The Majestic" has nominally 10,000 horse-power, to develop under forced draught to 12,000. In ordinary speed the "Royal Sovereign" stands for 16 knots, developing under pressure to 17. The Majestic" shows 16 knots for her ordinary speed, but does not exceed under pressure that of the "Royal Sovereign."

68

66

In the "Australia" and "Eclipse" we have the same features, the Eclipse" showing 550 tons to the "Australia's" 750 as normal supply, with an indeterminate capacity to the "Australia's" 900 tons. It is in the one element of speed that the newer design distinctly surpasses the old one, the speeds of the "Eclipse" being 18 to 19 knots, while those of the "Australia are from 17 to 18 knots.

There are general principles on which an opinion may be pronounced. I cannot but think that the building of unarmored cruisers of displacements approaching even those of battleships is buying in the cheapest market. No nation but Great Britain could afford to throw her money about as she has done on the " Blake" and the "Blenheim," the "Powerful" and the "Terrible." They are simply efforts to "go one better" than certain foreign ships, and it is almost impossible to find a place for them in the economy of war that would not be as well filled by smaller and cheaper ships.

But since I wrote on the future of the torpedo in a former number of this REVIEW, I only become more and more convinced that it is there that we should centre our regards. I cannot look on the "Majestic " as a permanent type when purely torpedo vessels, such as the torpedo-boat destroyers, are growing up beside her. There is a much wider margin of possible improvement before the torpedo vessel than there is before the battleship of present type. Even now an armored torpedo vessel is afloat, and speed here tends to increase, while in the battleship it seems to be stationary. No doubt feeling runs just now against the abovewater torpedo, and the torpedo vessel only fires them as yet in that way. But it seems to me that presently the naval mind will spring to the conception that buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest demands the development of the torpedo vessel pure and simple as against the battleship.

P. H. COLOMB.

QUARANTINE METHODS.

BY DR. ALVAH H. DOTY, HEALTH OFFICER OF THE PORT OF NEW

YORK.

No subject of importance is perhaps less understood than that of quarantine. Therefore, the general public is not familiar with the changes which have taken place in maritime sanitation during the past few years. Travellers who come within its jurisdiction are restless until released and are often too ready to condemn a service which occasionally is the cause of a disagreeable detention. To the residents of inland towns, quarantine methods are practically unknown; and only a transient interest is taken in the subject in seaports, where the quarantine restrictions imposed are apt to be looked upon solely as an obstruction to commerce. That unscientific and unpractical work has at times brought quarantine into deserved ridicule is only too true; fortunately, however, a new era in this work has been established and the treatment of infected ships (which in the past has been largely guided by theory) will hereafter, at a properly equipped quarantine station, be directed in a manner consistent with the positive knowledge of established facts which we now possess as the result of scientific research.

In order to appreciate fully the changes which have taken place, it is necessary to compare the methods of earlier times with those which are now employed. To a modern sanitarian, a review of quarantine from the fourteenth to the beginning of the present century is anything but satisfactory. The impotent and empirical methods then employed were almost on a plane with the incantations of the Indian medicine man. After 1800, Jenner's discovery of the protective power of vaccination caused considerable improvement in quarantine methods. From that time on more or less advancement was made, and the subject gradually

attracted the earnest attention of the scientific men of the world. Progress in this direction has been necessarily slow, as the work has been based largely on theory. Within the past ten or fifteen years, however, bacteriological investigations have given us indisputable evidence regarding the life and character of the germs which produce the infectious diseases (pathogenic organisms). The knowledge thus acquired has made it possible to study the action upon these micro-organisms of agents known as disinfectants and to ascertain the germicidal power of the latter. Positive knowledge as to the value of a disinfectant enables us to follow a course determined by facts and not by theories. Although the investigations in this direction are not complete, they have progressed sufficiently far to insure the most promising results.

66

Quarantine," which from its derivation means a detention of 40 days, was originally instituted as a means of protection agains the Bubonic Plague, an outbreak of which during the past year has so seriously affected Bombay. It is probable that the first attempt to establish a quarantine station was made in Venice, in 1348. It was at that period that the Plague, under the name of the "Black death," prevailed in Europe. The devastation which ensued seems almost incredible. Hecker estimates that 25,000,000, or one-quarter of the population of Europe, succumbed to this disease; 50,000 died in Paris, and out of a population of 2,000,000 in Norway, only 300,000 survived. It is not to be wondered at that the most drastic measures were taken to shorten this reign of terror. There is very little to show, however, that the means employed were effective, either at the seacoast or in the interior. Still, occasionally, we find evidence of good work; for example, during the outbreak of the Plague, which occurred in Italy in 1656, there were 300,000 deaths from this disease in Naples, and only 1,400 in Rome. This was attributed, and probably justly so, to the strict sanitary precautions enforced by Cardinal Gastaldi in the latter city.

The quarantine regulations first begun in Venice were subsequently put in operation along the Mediterranean coast, and in 1710 and 1721, by acts of Parliament, a rigorous quarantine was established in England against the introduction of the Plague. This was afterwards made operative against other "highly infectious disorders." That no well-defined idea of the methods necessary to insure protection against infectious disease existed at

this period is shown by unwarranted measures enforced in the treatment of presumably infected ships. For instance, in 1721, two vessels arriving in England laden with cotton from Cyprus, then affected with the Plague, were burned with their cargoes, the owner receiving an indemnity of $116,324; and as late as 1800 two vessels bringing hides from Morocco were ordered sunk by the British authorities, for which the government paid $72,900. The quarantine fees exacted from ship owners frequently amounted to from five to twenty per cent. of the value of the cargo. These charges were frequently imposed on ships carrying clean bills of health. The treatment of the cargo usually consisted of exposing the goods on the deck of the vessel from ten to twenty days; at the expiration of that time they were removed to a lazaret for an additional period of forty days. Vessels were, therefore, frequently detained in quarantine for two months or more. The quarantine service of this date was not improperly called a commerce destroyer." Lazarets for the reception of persons and goods were constructed at great expense to the state, and were frequently managed in a lavish and ineffective manner.

66

It does not require a very careful study of the epidemics which in the past so seriously affected Europe to appreciate that the long and unnecessary quarantines imposed did not have the desired effect, and frequently after the liberation from quarantine of a ship's passengers, crew, and cargo, secondary cases occurred on land, which were traced to infection carried from the ship. With this loss of faith in prolonged detention in quarantine came a determined effort on the part of the public, or at least the commercial element of it, to secure a relief from the onerous restrictions imposed upon commerce. As a result, in England particularly, the period of quarantine was gradually reduced, until at the present time there is practically no detention imposed in that country. In the Eastern countries, for instance in Greece and Turkey, we still find restrictions which are as unnecessary and inconsistent as those which existed 200 years ago. The absurdity of this is still more evident when we appreciate the utter disregard the people of the East have for sanitary regulations. As a result these peoples are always in a condition to favor the propaga tion of infectious diseases and they constitute tnereby a menace to the world. The danger from these visitations depends largely upon the sanitary condition of the community where the outbreak

occurs; no fact is better known or appreciated by those having in charge the public health. Filth, squalor, and famine extend a very cordial reception to the germs of the infectious diseases; while cleanliness and good sanitary regulations act as serious, and almost insurmountable, barriers to their entrance and propagation. At Eastern seaports, however, where Europeans constitute a large portion of the population and have more or less official influence, the quarantine service is relatively better. I was very much impressed with this during a recent inspection of the sanitary system of Egypt, which is practically in charge of Englishmen. The modern methods here employed and the great improvements which have recently been made in the disinfecting apparatus, and in the construction of laboratories, all show that even in this remote place it is appreciated that a new era in quarantine methods is at hand.

The constant tide of immigration to this country, bringing as it does an extremely undesirable class, has made it necessary to prepare for the reception of these persons in such a manner that they cannot act as a menace to the public health. That this is a very difficult task is evident to any one who will carefully investigate the details of the work. As a natural sequence of the stimulus thus afforded, the different quarantine stations in the United States are better equipped than in any other part of the world. It is here, also, that the needs of the service are better appreciated and the obstruction to commerce less; and although there is some want of harmony in the details of the work, it is rapidly becoming uniform under the influence of the accumulating facts resulting from scientific research.

It may very properly be asked in what essential points will the quarantine methods of the future differ from those of the past, and the answer is in the substitution of thorough and scientific disinfection in place of long and unnecessary detention in quarantine, particularly as it relates to the ship itself. I will explain this as follows: A vessel may arrive at a port with a case of infectious disease on board; it is frequently the case that the ship, crew, and passengers are detained for a period representing the incubation of the disease in question. Let us for a moment analyze this action. If the ship is thoroughly disinfected, how can it be a menace to the public health and why should it not be released immediately upon the comple