AN EPITOMIZED REVIEW 
OF THE 
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE 
OF 
Maritime -Samtattos- 
BY 
JOSEPH HOLT, M. D. 
Former Pr ddent of the Louisiana State Board of Health, i 8B4-iB3B. 
NEW ORLEANS: 
L, Graham * Son, Printers, 44 and 46 Baronne Street. 
lb''2. AN EPITOMIZED REVIEW 
OF THE 
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE 
OF 
Maritime Sanitation. 
BY 
JOSEPH HOLT, M. D., 
Former President of the Louisiana State Board of Health, 1884-1888. 
L. Graham & Son, Printers, 44 and 46 Baronne Street. 
1892. 
NEW ORLEANS: CONTENTS. 
Page. 
Introduction 3 
Terms Quarantine and Maritime Sanitation Defined 6 
Originating Causes of Quarantine—Schedule of Diseases 8 
Quarantine as a Question of State 11 
Quarantine Maintenance 13 
A Schedule of Quarantine Charges 15 
A Legislative Act Compelling the Reduction of Quarantine 
Revenue to the Limits of Quarantine Maintenance 15 
Quarantine and Commerce 17 
Dangers which Threaten the Efficiency of Maritime Sanitation 25 
Period of Quarantine Detention 26 
The Quarantine System in Louisiana 26 
International Sanitation. 27 
Resolutions on International Sanitation 29 
Interstate Notification of an Actual or “Suspicious” Case of Pes- 
tilential Disease 31 
Promptly Telling the Whole Truth Concerning the Public Health 
and All that Pertains to It 33 
The Commission of Medical Experts 36 
Introduction of the Bichloride of Mercury........ 37 
The Quarantine Methods of Louisiana—Maritime Sanitation 37 
Application of Bichloride of Mercury 42 
Sulphurous Oxide Fumigation 46 
Application of Dry and Moist Heat 49 
Annual Quarantine Proclamation 55 
Special Suggestions to Owners, Agents, Masters of Vessels and 
Passengers 57 
Regulation of the Tropical Fruit Trade and Passenger Traffic.. 77 
Improvement in Apparatus 80 
Conclusion S3 
Opinions Abroad and at Home 86 
INDEX TO PLATES. 
Plate i. Chart of Mississippi River 39 
Plate 2. Tug Boat with Fumigating Apparatus 61 
Plate 3. View of Disinfecting Wharf 63 
Plate 4. Sulphur Oxide Generator, Reservoir and Exhaust Fan 63 
Plate 5. Front View of Sulphur Oxide Generator 67 
Plate 6. Front View of Closed Moist Steamheating Chamber 69 
Plate 7. Moist Steamheating Chamber, Two Panels Drawn Open.... 71 
Plate 8. Boiler and Steam Connection with Superheating Chamber 73 
Plate 9. Steam Coil 73 
Plate 10. End View of Open Moist Steamheating Chambers ; 94 
Plate 11. Rear End of Moist Steamheating Chambers 94 
Plate 12. Front View of Sulphur Oxide Generator 94 
Plate 13. Side View of Sulphur Oxide Generator 94 INTRODUCTION. 
The subject treated in the following pages is so inti- 
mately associated with the transactions of the Louisiana 
State Board of Health during the official term of 1884- 
1886, inclusive, as to necessitate frequent and liberal 
quotations from pamphlets, letters and other records of 
that organization. These were published and widely 
distributed during that period embracing the conception, 
invention and e blishment of the interdependent muni- 
cipal and maritime sanitary system, including the perfect- 
ing of our health relations with States of the interior, 
together with municipal provisions for certain emergen- 
cies and a complete system of maritime sanitation at the 
quarantine stations of the Mississippi river, below New 
Orleans. 
The eminent services of Mr. John J. Barr, Mr. Joseph 
A. Shakspeare and Dr. L. F. Salomon, of the Quaran- 
tine Committee, invariably seconded by Col. W. M. 
Smallwood (deceased), Mr. Joseph Kohn, Drs. Charles 
E. Kells, S. R. Olliphant. L. H. Von Gohren and Hon. 
Albert Voorhies, members of the board, the admirable 
administration of its wishes b}r the resident physician and 
directing quarantine officer of the entire system, Dr. 
Thomas Y. Aby, to whose integrity, prudence and executive 
ability is so largely due the successful enforcement of the 
principles involved; the hearty endorsement and able 
support at all times accorded by the New Orleans Times- 
Democrat, the Daily Picayune, the Daily States, and 
the City Item, the services of these command the recog- 
nition of a public and personal debt; an obligation which 
far exceeds the ability of their fellow citizens to repay 
except in the ackowledgment of gratitude. 
The work of the Board of Health during that period is 
unalterably sealed in the commercial, the scientific and 
the State history of the time. No subsequent occurrence 4 
can break that seal or mar the glory which of right be- 
longs to an achievement as unselfish in patriotic purpose 
as it is far-reaching and permanent in humane influence. 
No claim of authorship in conceiving and inventing is 
of value without the concurrent claim which exists in the 
assistance of those mentioned, together with the financial 
aid in the liberal appropriation of thirty thousand dollars, 
in 1884, by the General Assembly of the State. 
The advent of Asiatic cholera in Eastern Europe, ap- 
proaching along the lines of former visitations in its west- 
ward girdling of the world, has suggested the prepara- 
tion of this treatise, in the earnest hope that it may help in 
giving scientific precision to efforts made in the construc- 
tion of defensive barriers against its lodgement beyond 
western seas, or against epidemic spread, if by some 
unfortunate mishap it finds its way inside the cordon of our 
coast guards. 
The following letter which appeared in the Marine 
Journal, New York, Saturday, July 23, so distinctly ex- 
plains the character and purpose of this publication as to 
make it peculiarly available here for a prefatory use: 
Editor Marine Journal, Nevu York: Dear Sir— 
Please accept my assurance of grateful appreciation of 
your recent editorial recognition of my authorship in con- 
nection with the modern system of Maritime Sanitation, 
as practically demonstrated in the quarantine methods 
enforced in the “ Lower Mississippi.” 
New Orleans, July 11, 1892. 
The significance of this work, in the magnitude of its 
far-reaching effect, was clearly understood and liberally 
commented on, during its evolution, by the Marine Jour- 
nal, and was endorsed by that authority as a practical 
solution of the “Quarantine and Commerce” problem. 
The terms of that problem involved a complete reconcili- 
ation between the preservation of the public health and 
the preservation of the public livelihood ; for to throw open 
and unguarded the gates of commerce is destructive of the 5 
one, and to shut them against trade destroys the other. 
We are compelled to harmonize and satisfy two masters. 
The fears, the impairment of confidence and disturb- 
ance of inter-State and international communication 
which have grown out of this question have vexed 
the heads of government and have harassed the in- 
genuity of political economists and health authorities in 
every nation of the earth, from the earliest history of 
their foreign military expeditions and trade ventures. 
Instead of ameliorating the necessities growing out of 
this question of protection against pestilence, the increas- 
ing complexities of modern civilization, notably rapid 
transit and increased travel, have largely added to them 
while more urgently demanding a remedy. 
The international sanitary conferences held in Con- 
stantinople, 1866, in Vienna, 1874, Rome in 1885 a°d 
Washington in 1888, with representative scientists and 
quarantine specialists, from thirty-one of the powers of 
the world, were all convened to consider, and, if possible, 
in co-operative council to solve, the “ Quarantine and 
Commerce” problem. ■ 
Unfortunately, however, while the wrorld is indebted to 
those assemblies of savants for an amazing display of 
scientific lore and contrariety of opinion, the subject was 
left by them no nearer a practical solution than where 
they found it in the beginning. 
The failure to grasp the subject in its commercial large- 
ness, as well as in its professional limitations and micro- 
scopic relation to germs, was a scholarly tribute to medi- 
cal training, but fatally one-sided. 
In the light of such history, it fills me, as an American, 
with pardonable pride to consider that while the universal 
sanitary congress was yet in session at Rome, 1885, the 
“New System of Maritime Sanitation” was set in 
smoothly working operation, and the portal of the valley 
of the Mississippi was flung wide open to the commerce 
of the world, and vessels from cholera and yellow fever ports invited to come and be cleansed of pestilential taint. 
This was done, too, with the full knowledge and consent of 
the States of the interior, cementing in a closer bond our 
maritime and interior relations: nor has that portal been 
closed an hour since to of its highways of traffic and 
travel. 
The same guarantees of protection established by in- 
ventive science in the emancipation of the port of New 
Orleans are freely offered for adoption and are being ac- 
cepted by the world in the construction of its defences 
against pestilential invasion. 
The daily telegrams feebly inform us of the consterna- 
tion and frenzied but unavailing efforts to check the ad- 
vance of Asiatic cholera in its westward march along its 
historic courses of the trans-Caucasus and “Upper 
Route.” These reports are pitiful disclosures of the 
ignorance and old-time methods still prevailing in middle 
and Eastern Europe, while they admonish the enlightened 
Western world to rest its faith upon the stability of natural 
law in the acceptance and enforcement of the sufficient 
provisions of applied science. In this alone is the only 
rational hope, and in these provisions the only sure de- 
fence against the importation of pestilence, while keeping 
open the channels of trade and maintaining the reciprocal 
balance of undisturbed industries. I remain, sir, 
Very respectfully, 
Joseph Holt, M. D., 
Ex-President Louisiana State Board of Health. 
TERMS QUARANTINE AND MARITIME SANITATION 
defined. 
Among the more enlightened communities of the world 
the term quarantine has lost its original signification of 
forty days’ detention as a safeguard against the transmis- 
sion of epidemical contagions, and is now used techni- 
cally as comprehending the appointed sanitary stations, 
together with the rules, regulations and measures of sani- tarv treatment thereat, of all carriers of merchandise, per- 
sons and things whatsoever, arriving over the highway 
of traffic and travel guarded by the same. Being his- 
toric and conveniently adapted by a change of definition 
to modern requirement, the word quarantine, although 
essentially faulty, is unalterably established in legal, sci- 
entific and commercial nomenclature. 
Until 1885 quarantine had been, and is now as gener- 
ally practised, a rudimentary expression of an imperative 
necessity of protection from the sweeping ravages of cer- 
tain malignant diseases, its methods and traditions bear- 
ing the stamp of the ignorance, superstition and inhuman 
selfishness which characterized the time of its inception 
in the darkest period of the Middle Ages. While we 
tolerate the name, the very mention of quarantine is 
tainted with the ideas of ruinous detention, arbitrary reg- 
ulations, barbarous and useless treatment, including the 
imposition of iniquitous exactions in fees, fines and other 
inordinate taxations, mercilessly levied upon the stranger 
at the gateway, oftentimes in distress. 
Every quarantine not thoroughly modernized and 
equipped is an instrument for the infliction of grievous 
wrongs, legalized by the communit}? and State through 
whose sufferance it exists. The principles of its opera- 
tion are shrouded in ignorance, and its practices chargea- 
ble with cupidity, tyranny, and fraud in its pretended 
protection. 
The term Maritime Sanitation is of recent origin, 
and signifies the application of modern methods suggested 
by sanitary science and approved by experience in the 
treatment of all carriers, persons and things traversing the 
seas; whether applied at- the port of departure, on the 
voyage or in quarantine at the port of entry. It has no 
reference to any period of detention beyond the few hours 
of delay in the process of cleansing and disinfection 
through the agency of efficient apparatus amply provided, 
except in the case of vessels known to be infected. 
If a quarantine station is inadequately equipped, the 8 
term maritime sanitation can not be truthfully used, and 
becomes deceptive and mischievous. 
A quarantine not entitled to the use of this technical 
term deserves no recognition except as an obstacle to 
commerce and a gateway to disease, as abundantly dem- 
onstrated historically. 
Preventive medicine has achieved no other work com- 
paring in variety of results, magnitude and importance 
with the establishment of Maritime Sanitation as a clearly 
defined and strictly scientific system of defence against 
pestilential importation. State medicine can reach no 
higher eminence in protecting care of the commonwealth. 
ORIGINATING CAUSES OF QUARANTINE-SCHEDULE 
OF DISEASES. 
Quarantine is an ultimate result of a physical fact in- 
fluencing an instinctive sentiment. The fact exists in 
certain living organisms, of malignant pathogenic powers, 
capable of rapid and widespread propagation coincident 
with limiting conditions of temperature, moisture and 
pabulum. The instinct is that of fear operating under 
the law of self-preservation. 
The desolations of pestilence, and all efforts to fty 
from, to prevent or cure the malady, are logical sequences 
of these two fundamentals. 
The earliest recorded quarantine regulations were in- 
stituted against the “plague of leprosy,” Leviticus xiii, 
46-S9- 
These consisted in a seven or fourteen days’ detention 
of the suspected case for observation, and permanent 
isolation if pronounced “unclean.” (“He shall dwell 
alone; without the camp shall nis habitation be.”) The 
clothing was cleaned by washing or “ burnt in fire,” the 
very best protective management of leprosy to-day. 
Venice took the lead in measures to check the spread 
of plague, and established in 1484 the first “ quarantine ” 
against the dreaded Black Death. 
By an act of the British Parliament, in 1824, “yellow 9 
fever was recognized as calling for quarantine measures 
along with plague.’’ 
Cholera was generally quarantined against without the 
slightest impediment to its extension during the first in- 
vasion of the world, 1831 to 1836, and the three sub- 
sequent general invasions, concluding with that of 1865 to 
1:873. What a distressing demonstration of quarantine 
according to the “ old system.” 
Small-pox being generally domiciled was not scheduled 
in the quarantine list prior to inclusion in the international 
bill of health, adopted by the international sanitary con- 
gress, at Washington, 1881. 
At the present time, yellow fever, cholera and small- 
pox are the pestilential infections which, by universal 
consent, come within the purview of special quarantine 
consideration. The reason is apparent in the destructive 
capacity and alarming tendency to spread which charac- 
terize these true pestilences. 
It matters not how many die, relatively, of tuberculosis, 
diphtheria, typhoid and the ordinary eruptive fevers, 
it is yellow fever, small-pox and Asiatic cholera which 
leave their swath of dead, as upon a vast battle-field, and 
carry terror into the hearts of nations, prostrating indus- 
tries and paralyzing commerce. These are the diseases 
which disturb social order, at times upsetting the peaceful 
relations of communities and states while inaugurating a 
condition of anarchy closely akin to war. These, too, 
are the diseases which strain friendly relations on ac- 
count of alleged violation of international comity, com- 
pelling treat}r provisions for certain observances and for 
mutual aid. 
To illustrate this we present the following associated 
press telegrams in morning papers: 
St. Petersburg, July 22, 1892. 
The JVovoe Vremya, describing scenes in the cholera 
infected districts, says : 
“ The Baku Railroad station was filled with a tumul- 10 
tuous crowd of fugitives. When the doors were opened 
the crowd rushed to the platform and soon over-crowded 
the trains. Many sat on the floor rather than be left be- 
hind. The stench of the atmosphere was suffocating. 
“Passengers sprinkled their own and their neighbors' 
clothes with carbolic acid. A-doctor looks atthe tongues 
and feels the passenger’s pulse. Everybody protests that 
he or she is in perfect health. The train starts and with- 
in a few minutes a passenger is taken ill with the cholera. 
The inmates of the patient’s compartment at once become 
panic stricken. The patient is removed and the place 
where he sat is sprinkled with carbolic acid, and the pas- 
sengers immediately refill their places. A similar scene 
occurs frequentty. At each station the same perfunctory 
examination is made. No wonder cholera is spreading in 
Tiflis and other places.” 
“Six cases of cholera and four deaths have occurred at 
Kolomn, sixty-three miles from Moscow, where there are 
extensive factories and iron works. Two deaths from 
cholera have occurred in a village nearer Moscow and 
two within Moscow. None of these, however, have been 
reported officially. 
“ Few of the principal merchants intend to visit the 
Nijni-Novgorod fair. Many will send subordinates (sic). 
“ Galician papers report that differences have arisen be- 
tween Russia and Persia owing to the fact that a number 
of Persians have died from cholera in Baku. Persia has 
demanded compensation, on the ground that Russia has 
not taken proper sanitary precautions.” 
Berlin, July 23.—The Cologne Gazette's St. Peters- 
burg correspondent says : 
MERCHANTS OBLIGED TO ASK FOR GRACE. 
“Numbers of Baku merchants have telegraphed to 
the minister of finance asking that they be granted terms 
of grace in the meeting of their obligations, owing to 
the injury business has suffered through the cholera 11 
epidemic. There have been several failures at Astrak- 
han and Saritzin, and other failures are expected during 
the holding of the Nijni-Novgorod fair.’' 
QUARANTINE AS A QUESTION OF STATE. 
Growing out of the fundamental law of self-preserva- 
tion, the right of enforcing quarantine is inherent and 
universally conceded as a natural right of every govern- 
ment in the protection of its people. 
The question of the constitutional right of a State to 
protect its citizens by interposing quarantine as a bar to 
the importation of pestilence, and of maintaining the 
same by an equitable charge upon shipping, for services 
rendered in such treatment as may be required to allow 
entry without endangering the inhabitants of its ports, 
and thence of its interior, is one vital, not only to the 
health and industrial integrity of the people, but involves 
the whole question of the reserved right to regulate the 
internal arrangements affecting its police powers. 
The constitutionality of charges for quarantine services 
was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States 
at Washington, in favor of the Board, May 10, 1886, in 
the case of Morgan’s La. & Texas R. R. & S. S. Co. vs. 
The Board of Health of the State of Louisiana, inter- 
vener. 
The Board of Health held in that suit the ground that 
no such inherent or natural right has ever been parted 
from the State and lodged by any constitutional provision 
in the Federal Government. Indeed, the Constitution 
does not contemplate, in any clause, the regulation of 
health matters within the States ; therefore, by its reti- 
cence, we may believe, it has properly left the question 
entirely to the States themselves, to be determined in 
practice by the particular exigencies as they arise. 
Upon the decision rendered in that case depended the 
existence of a self-sustaining quarantine system in every 
port of the United States. 12 
Apart from the constitutional right in this matter, the 
natural right is perfectly apparent, and is universally ad- 
mitted. 
In the codified “Laws Relating to Her Majesty’s Do- 
minion at Home and Abroad, and of the Principal For- 
eign States,” prepared by Sir Shirston Baker, Bart., this 
principle of right is distinctly announced. 
“ Quarantine is established and recognized by Interna- 
tional Law for the common security and protection of 
States against those diseases which are supposed to be 
importable. 
“ Although the chief source of the intercourse of 
States, in their individual capacity, is the exchange of 
commodities of natural or artificial production, and a 
mutual exchange of superfluous commodities is, as a rule, 
reciprocally advantageous to both nations—and it may 
even be said that it is the moral duty of a nation not to 
refuse commerce with another nation—yet this duty 
always presupposes the safeguard that such commerce is 
not hurtful to the nation which imports. * * * 
“ And although it is contrary to sound policy for a na- 
tion to impose quarantine merely for the purpose of pro- 
viding a revenue to the country in which it is established, 
this is not to be understood of certain dues or duties 
which are imposed on ships entering the ports of a State, 
for the legitimate purpose of maintaining the quarantine 
or sanitary establishments of the country.” 
While it is true that foreign nations are here referred 
O 
to, the principle of self-protection is the same; whether it 
be against small-pox from New York or yellow fever from 
Mexico. 
In the natural conditions affecting quarantine, the 
States of the Federal Union, subdividing a vast part of a 
continent, have the significance of nations. 
They present every variety of climate and of physical 
condition known on the continents of Europe or of Asia 
between the extremes of north temperate and semi-tropi- 
cal latitudes. 13 
Some of the nations—so called States—in this confed- 
eration are adjoining, while widely separated from others. 
The natural conditions which influence the quarantines of 
Boston and Galveston or San Diego are as widely re- 
moved as those governing St. Petersburg and Barcelona. 
The dangers of the introduction of infection, and the 
sacrifice of human life in Louisiana, is not mitigated be- 
cause the destructive agent may have been imported from 
a sister State; nor is protection, and all that may be re- 
quired to secure it, less incumbent. 
If a State has a natural right to protect itself from the 
importation of pestilence from one direction, it has an 
equal right to do so from every other; and if it is reason- 
able and just to charge for services rendered a visiting 
ship in enabling her to conform to needful regulations 
under that right in the one instance, it is also just and 
reasonable in the other. 
To discriminate against any one by failing to make 
uniform charges for uniform services is invidious, harsh 
and unjust. 
Every vessel enjoying privileges afforded the quar- 
antine measures of a State is obligated by every rule of 
justice to return a fair compensation for the maintenance 
of the institution of which it is the beneficiary. On the 
other hand, an equal moral obligation rests upon the 
State to render true service and to present the lowest pos- 
sible pro-rata charge for quarantine maintenance only. 
QUARANTINE MAINTENANCE. 
Through legislative appropriation the State should pay 
for construction and equipment of quarantine stations. 
The maintenance is accomplished wholly (a doubtful pol- 
icy) through a carefully arranged schedule of charges, 
not as a tax upon tonnage, but as a return, a quid fro quo, 
for services rendered in the inspection and sanitary 
treatment necessary to permit entry without jeopardy to 
the port. 14 
The inspection fees should be fixed by legislative 
enactment. The cleansing and disinfection charges 
should be established by the board of quarantine control, 
in strict accordance with the work accomplished. 
The revenues derived from quarantine sources should 
never exceed the necessary expenditure in quarantine 
maintenance economically administered. This should 
be made compulsory by legislative enactment. 
The application of methods adequate to the speedy and 
thorough disinfection and cleansing of a vessel, the keep- 
ing of a station for infected vessels only, the general sus- 
tenance, in short, of a system of efficient maritime sanita- 
tion necessarily requires a considerable outlay of money, 
which redounds to the immediate saving to the ship and 
to commerce of many times the amount so expended. 
As a matter of best paying economy and the wisest 
course in the long run, everything should be done to in- 
vite trade, by removing every possible obstruction to 
shipping. With a high quarantine tariff and ruinous port 
charges, including enormous wharfage dues, vessels are 
practically treated as enemies to be spoiled, and are often 
kept away as effectually as by a blockade. 
Every sentiment of equitable dealing and principle of 
progressive movement condemns this short-sighted policy; 
for, by right, the State and its maritime port are, at least, 
one-half beneficiaries of commerce, and these should 
bear at least one-half the entire expense of quarantine 
maintenance, reducing the necessary charges one-half. 
Considered alone from the position of a State and of 
a sea port, and in the line of a far-seeing and sound 
economic policy, vessels should not be charged quaran- 
tine dues of any kind except for quarantine maintenance, 
and these should be strictly proportioned to the services 
rendered, and should be reduced, pro rata, as rapidly 
as the increasing amount of shipping will allow. The quarantine inspection fees for the port of New 
Orleans are fixed by legislative enactment, as follows: 
Steamships and ships, $l5 5 barks, $l2; brigs, $7.50; 
schooners, $5. 
A SCHEDULE OF QUARANTINE CHARGES. 
Fees for disinfection of vessels fixed by the board : 
steamships, $130: ships, s7°; barks, $6O; brigs, $6O; 
schooners, $17.50. 
Under the “ old system the charges were: inspection 
lees, steamships and ships, $3O; barks, $2O; brigs $10; 
schooners, $7.50. 
The so-called disinfection fee, for burning afew pounds 
of sulphur in pots placed in the hold, and sprinkling around 
some crude carbolic acid, with long detention of the ves- 
sel, was, together with actual cost to the vessel and cargo, 
an uncertain amount, ranging from $2OO to approximat- 
ing $3OOO, according to the notions of the board of health, 
character of vessel, cargo and other determiningincidents. 
To furnish a more exact idea of quarantine expenses 
under the old regime, we will cite the incoming of a cargo 
of 20.000 bags of coffee from Rio de Janeiro per steam- 
ship. Reckoning all quarantine expenses as if borne by 
the cargo (as a rule the ship bears them), under the present 
system the rate per bag would amount to four-fifths of 
one cent. The same cargo per sailing vessel would 
amount to one-half cent per bag, as against the former 
cost under the old system, of not less than ten cents per 
bag, or about $2OOO. Instances in other parts of the 
world of quarantine costs of 5 per cent, on the total 
value of the cargo, and some exceeding this, are on 
record. 
A LEGISLATIVE ACT COMPELLING THE REDUCTION OF 
QUARANTINE REVENUE TO THE LIMITS OF QUARAN- 
TINE MAINTENANCE. 
While heretofore quarantine revenues have not exceed- 
ed the cost of quarantine maintenance, the ability of the 16 
Board of Health under then existing legislation to allow 
an indefinite accumulation of money from this source was 
so apparent that future protection of the State and of 
commerce against the dangerous use of a priviledge de- 
manded anticipatory remedy. 
In order, therefore, to prevent the Board of Health from 
ever taking advantage of the power it enjoyed of making 
quarantine revenues a source of accumulation and hoard- 
ing up of money under the specious title of a sinking fund 
or reserve fund, this body, through its representatives, 
went before the General Assembly during the last session 
and pra}'7ed to be shorn of this dangerous power in order 
not to be led into temptation; declaring that it was impos- 
sible to possess such power without eventually using it 
oppressively to commerce, and subversive of the public 
welfare; that the large accumulation of money by such a 
body, political in its being, was unnecessary, corrupting 
and pernicious. 
The Legislature, thoroughly appreciating our motives, 
granted the request, as set forth in the following, Section 
4 of Act No. 23 of the regular session of *886: 
Sec. 4. Be it farther enacted, etc That all sums of 
money which may be collected hereafter, or which may 
be due for past services accruing from the lees for quar- 
antine inspection, disinfection and fumigation, shall con- 
stitute a special trust fund, to be known as “ the Louisi- 
ana Quarantine Trust Fund,” to be exclusively applied 
to the maintenance and support of the quarantine system 
of the State, and should any amount for any one year or 
period of years be collected in excess of the quarantine 
expenses, the Board of Health shall adjust and fix its 
budget for the ensuing }rear to make such pro rata de- 
crease and deductions in the rate of charges for inspec- 
tion and disinfection as shall bring the revenues from the 
quarantine system within the amount exclusively and 
absolutely necessary to sustain the quarantine system, 
and it shall not be lawful to appropriate any sums of 17 
money derived from the quarantine charges to any other 
purpose than the maintenance and support of the quaran- 
tine system and the payment of the salaries and expenses 
connected therewith, as at present administered. 
QUARANTINE AND COMMERCE. 
This question can be properly understood only by rising 
to a broad comprehension of the correlated principles and 
generalizations of State Medicine and Commerce. 
Unfortunately for quarantine as a progressive science 
and art, it has been the foster-child of the specialists in 
medicine and commerce, who move and have their being 
in the narrowest of professional grooves. These nurses 
with their ancient measures as swaddling bands have re- 
pressed development, not by reason of a lack of intelli- 
gence, but because of the special education and high train- 
ing of a 'professionally restricted intelligence. 
To provide for the common defence against disaster 
and to promote the general welfare, chiefly by fostering 
the general livelihood, comprehends the purpose, duty 
and obligation of government, State and national. 
The fact of pestilential foreign invasion, second only to 
invasions of war, compels measures of exclusion, which 
have heretofore in a proportional degree embargoed trade; 
the necessity of preserving the public health has clashed 
with the necessity of preservingthe public maintenance. 
The instrument of the former necessity, quarantine, 'as 
heretofore practised, emphasized this conflict by a com- 
plete failure of its protective intention, finally compelling 
boards of health to rely upon the primitive prolonged 
detention, and even to abandon quarantine altogether and 
fly to proclamations of non-intercourse, in an ultimate 
acknowledgment of their own deficiencies. 
No casual observer can realize the amount of incon- 
venience, anxiety, deprivation and actual suffering occa- 
sioned by the futile but oppressive measures of the “ Old 
System.” The history of quarantine in Louisiana, ex- 18 
tending through a period of sixty-four years, 1821-1884, 
furnishes a singularly clear demonstration of this entire 
question. It is a chronological record of pestilential ap- 
pearances and epidemics, along with inflictions upon com- 
merce, destructive of extensive branches of trade and 
associated industries; it is a long chapter in the history of 
yellow fever and cholera, furnishing the only explanation 
why New Orleans stratigically located, with its soft and 
delightful climate, varied and abundant food-suppty, so 
exceptionally desirable as a home, is not to-day second 
only to New York in population and as a commercial and 
manufacturing centre. It is an epitome of quarantine 
operations, from its inception, 1484, to the beginning of 
its end, 1884, the date of the inception of the “New 
System.” 
There are four natural laws governing commercial 
movement, as profound, as universal, and invariable as 
the law of gravity which determines the rotation of the 
planets around the sun, more persistently operative than 
international or local regulations. 
1. The currents of trade seek the shortest course. 
2. It is a law of commerce, as of fluids, to follow the 
course of least resistance, 
j. With increase of distance traversed there must be in- 
creased assurance of entry. 
4. In the interchange of commodities, the normal direction 
of commerce is chiefly from north to south, coincident 
with longitude and across isotherms and parallels of 
latitude. 
We announce the first, second and third propositions 
as axiomatic and proven by all experience; chiefly in the 
fact that a departure is not an exception to a rule, but in- 
variably incurs the penalty of a violated law. 
A quarantine of ten days as effectually destroys com- 
merce eventually as a declaration of non-intercourse. 
The difference is one of a force slowly or quickly acting. 19 
The necessities of modern civilization are wholly in the 
•direction of rapid transit. If a particular port does not 
-choose to adapt itself to this higher law, it must endure 
the consequences in a complete transfer of its trade to 
ports in competition, where wisdom, shrewdness and en- 
ergy combine for the preservation of the public interest 
in its entirety; the public health and the public wealth. 
When a port permits the obstruction of her commer- 
cial gateways, she deflects her trade in a direction of least 
resistance, and starves her own children while she feeds 
the hungry multitudes of rival ports. None but an enemy 
or a fool saturated with ignorance can insist upon the 
continuance of such a monstrous course. 
A physical bar obstructing the mouth of the river pre- 
sented itself for as a formidable obstacle to the 
commerce of the Mississippi. The genius of Eads dis- 
played before Congress a plan whereby this bar could be 
jettied and an opening made to the commerce of the world. 
Congress, upon mere faith in his plans, which were yet 
experimental, appropriated, subject to his call, $5,000,- 
odo, and to-day the mouth of the Mississippi is open to 
the heaviest tonnage of the maritime world. 
When the genius of man had overcome this physical 
bar commerce was yet confronted by a legal barrier 
more obstinate, more insuperable, than the physical de- 
tention. 
Of what use could be the removal of a sand bar of 
uncertain obstruction, when there remained one imposed 
by law more obdurate than rock? 
The necessities of their existence as a commercial peo- 
ple demand that the ports of the Mexican Gulf and south- 
ern Atlantic seaboard shall jetty their quarantines and limit 
them to a narrow channel, obstructive to importation of 
pestilence, but open as a highway to commerce. 
While the North Atlantic seaports may enjoy peculiar 
privileges and exercise a certain degree of boldness in 
regard to yellow fever, due to the exemption afforded by 20 
high latitude, there is not one now operating under the 
“ Old System” but would be thrown into an agony of 
anxiety and downright terror by such an occurrence as the 
reception in quarantine of a ship with passengers and 
crew dying of Asiatic cholera. In proof of this very 
serious charge, no stronger case in evidence could be 
cited than the reception accorded the steamship Alesea, 
which arrived at the quarantine of New York on the 
night of Sept. 22, 1887, having on board 600 passen- 
gers from Marseilles and Palermo, then being ravaged by 
cholera; several passengers having died of it during the 
voyage. 
The numerous press telegrams preserved and now be- 
fore us indicate how the entire country was flooded with 
startling accounts of intense excitement in New York, de- 
scribing the situation as extremely grave on account of the 
lack of public confidence in the quarantine, ridiculing the 
antiquated methods and total lack of preparation for such 
an emergency ; openly accusing their authorities of having 
“ obtained an unsavory reputation in the matter of making 
fees out of the disinfection of imported rags; hence the 
intense public anxiety as to their line of action in the ex- 
isting emergency.” JNor did this public terror check 
short of the extraordinary abandonment which expressed 
itself in an open demand for the refusal of quarantine 
asylum, and that the vessel be turned about and put back 
to sea with her living freight of cholera-stricken men, 
women and children. 
No record of the Dark Ages exceeds this proposition in 
enormity and as a monstrous confession of utter helpless- 
ness and abject fear. Fortunately, with extraordinary 
effort and time, the ship was thoroughly treated by hastily 
improvised methods, and public fears allayed. 
The lesson contained in this brief historic recital is of 
incalculable value, if studied in the light of its singular 
significance. In addition to the narrow escape of an 
entire continent, perhaps, it unquestionably establishes. 21 
the fact that even the port of New York, if subjected to 
periodic and frequent shocks such as this, would be com- 
pelled either to change radically the quarantine methods 
evidently prevailing at that time and perhaps at present, 
or suffer enormous damage in its shipping and industrial 
interests, for Asiatic cholera is no respecter of latitude. 
To enter the commercial field in competition, a mari- 
time port must have an equal chance with others. How 
disastrous, then, that system of quarantine which compels 
its Board of Health, while officially and perfunctorily 
endeavoring to keep out pestilence, also to suspend its 
commerce by handicapping with prolonged detention and 
excessive charges for cleansing and disinfection, often 
not performed. Under such a system, the conservators 
of the public health become, perforce, the destroyers of 
the public livelihood. 
Subh, in fact, is the urgency for the reconciliation of 
the imperative interests of the public health with the 
scarcely less imperative interests of the public livelihood 
that to-day it is recognized as a- question among nations 
second in magnitude only to that involving the exigencies 
of war; and, as in the costly but improved modern arma- 
ment, just so in the defences against pestilential invasion, 
the application of past experience must compel a 
change, not only of armament, but also of strategy and 
tactics. 
These prodigious material and moral associated forces 
have already compelled the governments of the entire 
world to invoke the aid of sanitary councils and con- 
gresses, held at Constantinople, Vienna, Paris, Rome and 
Washington, hoping in such largeness of representative 
ability to discover a solution to the one question alone 
which they were called upon to consider, the solution of 
this mighty problem of Quarantine and Commerce. Un- 
fortunately for all the question was invariably left by them 
as entirely unsolved at the end as at the beginning. 
A careful study of the “past experteuce'n alluded to 22 
sheds no light, however, upon quarantine as a science and 
art. Maritime sanitation emerged, and was soon full- 
fledged, from the womb of all experience and accumula- 
tion of science, and not in the line of hereditary descent 
from the disreputable “ old system.” 
Having neither literature nor precedents, as the sire of 
a royal house, it was its own ancestor, born in the Louis- 
iana quarantine out of the loins of aseptic and antiseptic 
surgery. 
Maritime Sanitation, resting its faith upon the immuta- 
bility of natural law, and formulated as an exact science, 
practised as an art in a clearly defined and consistent sys- 
tem of defense, offers itself as positive. It does not say 
that 3’ellow fever or cholera shall never again ravage New 
Orleans, but furnishes the highest assurance within the 
scope of reason that these shall never again enter by way 
of the Gulf and Mississippi river. 
The accumulating necessities of the enlightened world 
demand and will compel the adoption of a distinctly 
formulated and thoroughly tried system, wherein is har- 
monized and brought into perfect reconciliation the 
interests of the public health and all the interests com- 
prehended in the public livelihood. 
Viewed from any point of observation, whether from 
that of humanity or science, whether from that of the 
grand future of commerce with our exterior or interior 
connections, the solution of this problem is the most impor- 
tant and absolutely imperative question that can engage 
the attention of the scientists, the statesmen or the mer- 
chants of the Gulf States and Mississippi Valley, as well 
also as those of exposed maritime ports throughout the 
world. 
The foregoing, and indeed this entire treatise, is a con- 
densation from the following pamphlets, published re- 
ports and letters by Joseph Holt, M. D., president of the 
Board of Health of the State of Louisiana—lBB4-1888. 23 
Address Before the Sanitary Conference of State 
Boards of Health, 
Held at New Orleans, June 2,‘ 3 and 4, ISS4. “ Quaran- 
tine Improvements—ls the Present System of Quaran- 
tine an Exact Science? Are Boards of Health of the 
Gulf States Doing Their Whole Duty?” Being a general 
reply to inquiries, “ No. I—Can1—Can an effective quarantine 
be enforced along the Gulf Coast?” “No. 2—How to 
enforce quarantine so as to produce the least possible in- 
jury to commerce?” “No. 3—Non-intercourse—under 
what circumstances justified ?” “‘No. 4—Period of quar- 
antine detention?” “No. s—The5—The disposal of non-infected 
and infected vessels under quarantine. Treatment of ves- 
sels and cargoes with a view to disinfection?” 
Quarantine and Commerce. 
“ Their Antagonism Destructive to the Prosperity of City 
and State. A Reconciliation an Imperative Necessity. 
How This May Be Accomplished. An Address Before 
the Exchanges and Other Commercial Bodies of New Or- 
leans, June 20, 1584.” 
The Obligations of Louisiana in Rei.ation to Quaran- 
tine as a Question of State. 
“A Synopsis of the Argument Addressed to the Senate 
Committee of Finance in Urging Upon the General As- 
sembly the Necessity for an Ample Appropriation for the 
Establishment of a More Efficient Quarantine System,” 
June 26, 1884. 
Address Before the Joint Committee of the Commer 
cial Bodies of New Orleans, 
“In Conference with the United States, Mexican, Central 
and South American Commission,” Dec. 30, ISB4. 
A Comparative Review of Quarantine and Maritime 
Sanitation. 
The New Quarantine System. 
New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, June, 1885. 24 
Prevention of Yellow Fever—Commercial Relations 
with Brazil as Affected by Quarantine Regula- 
tions. 
“A Reply to a Letter from Dom Salvador de Mendonca, 
Brazilian Consul General at New York, Complimentary 
to the Improvements in Maritime Sanitation Introduced 
During the Present Season by the Board of Health of the 
State of Louisiana.” Oct. 17, ISBS. 
Brazil and New Orleans. 
Editorial from the Jour?ial de Commercio, Rio de Janeiro, 
November 24, ISSS.” 
The Sanitary Protection of New Orleans, Municipal 
and Maritime. 
‘"Read before the American Public Health Association, at 
Washington, D. C., December 10, iSSv” 
The proposed yellow fever commission and the National 
Board of Health, New Orleans, March 27, ISB6. 
The National Board of Health. 
“ In its relations to the Mississippi Valley and States of the 
Gulf.” Presented to both houses of Congress, 1886. 
Excerpta from the Biennial Report of the Board of 
Health of the State of Louisiana, to the General 
Assembly, 1884-ISBS. 
Interstate notification, its principles as demonstrated in the 
history of yellow fever at Biloxi, Harrison county, Missis- 
sippi, in 1886. 
Conference of the American Shipping and Industrial 
League. Held at Pensacola, Pla., November 10-12, 1886. 
“ An address on the relation of quarantine to shipping inter- 
ests, being a reply to the inquiry entitled ‘ No. 5. Can a 
state of 'public health be maintained at the Gulf ports 
while constant intercourse is had with the tropics? 7 ” 
The Quarantine System of Louisiana. 
Methods of Disinfection Practised, with illustrations. By 
Joseph Holt, M. D. An Addendum to the Report of the 
Committee on Disinfectants of the American Public Health 
Association, submitted at Memphis, Tenn., November, 
1887. Excerpta from the Biennial Report of the Board of Health 
(with photographic plates) to the General Assembly of 
Louisiana, 1886-1887. 
DANGERS WHICH THREATEN THE EFFICIENCY OF MARI 
TIME SANITATION. 
While exact in principle and unbending in requirement 
■of intelligent and faithful work, in its practical operation 
there must be in Maritime Sanitation a judicious mixture 
of definiteness in principle and conscientiousness in 
thoroughness of work, with elasticity of scope in admin- 
istrative details. A complete code of invariable rules of 
detail is impossible and undesirable. 
A failure of the system to prevent the passage of pes- 
tilence through its portal is no evidence of a failure of 
law or of the sufficiency of scientific principles and ap- 
pliances any more than could be charged to its twin sis- 
ter, the science and art of Listerian Surgery. 
The recent collapse of a steel bridge over Licking 
river, Kentucky, with fearful loss of life, did in no wise 
unsettle the engineering principles and practices of bridge 
building, but confirmed them. 
The stability of natural law and the perfecting of ap- 
paratus can furnish no guarantee of safety, except as in- 
struments of intelligent control. They possess no power 
to save beyond the intellectual and moral capacity of.the 
Quarantine Physician in charge. If he is negligent, ve- 
nal, sometimes intoxicated, a man of low moral tone, 
-cajoled and treated and feasted by ships’ officers, a gam- 
bler or otherwise unreliable, the entire station in all of its 
workings, falls to the plane of its presiding officer. 
Considering its strategic position, and how the lives and 
livelihood of perhaps millions of people may be jeopard- 
ized by the obliquities of one man, it becomes at once 
apparent that the right selection of a man of unquestion- 
ably good habits and more profoundly impressed with the 
greatness of his responsibility rather than of himself, is 
the sine qua non of success, even of the best equipped 26 
system. Without this the service becomes a sinecure, and 
the station a mere political machine depot, with an unde- 
served but high-sounding name: a precursor of disaster 
with disgrace; but not of the principles and practice of 
marine sanitation. 
There is no position in the State which so imperatively 
demands a man of high honor and integrity, chosen 
solely on acknowledged merit. 
PERIOD OF QUARANTINE DETENTION. 
This can not be scheduled for general practice, but 
must be determined by local experience modified by the 
scientifically tested working efficiency of the quarantine 
plant. 
The generalization governing the case is that, under 
the “ new system,” days of detention are reduced to hours, 
because ships cleansed, disinfected and fumigated in 
name are so in fact. 
The schedule in force for this port is contained in the 
“ Annual Proclamation,” page 55- 
THE QUARANTINE SYSTEM OF LOUISIANA. 
A system of quarantine protection as applied to a sea- 
port occupying a strategic position upon the world’s great 
thoroughfares must not be understood as restricted to the 
narrow limits of a quarantine station. A localized view 
gives no adequate idea of the scope of its operation as re- 
ciprocally dependent upon every other constituent of pub- 
lic health defence. A properly appointed quarantine plant 
is really an intermediate station between our exterior and 
interior relations; and is in such vital and instant com- 
munication with both as to be a compound element of 
a complex and far-reaching sanitary system. 
The system which was conceived, invented and estab- 
lished as the interdependent maritime and municipal sani- 
tary system of Louisiana consists of several closely asso- 
ciated and reciprocally acting elements, which we consider 27 
after a brief study of maritime sanitation in its exterior or 
foreign asoect. 
o A 
With its earliest inception the “ new system ’’ has con- 
templated sanitary preparation in the port of departure, 
and prompt international notification of pestilential infec- 
tionas the true beginning of Maritime Sanitation. 
INTERNATIONAL SANITATION. 
This question is so comprehensively treated in the able 
letter, with accompanying resolutions of Col. Walter M. 
Smallwood, deceased (one of the most erudite, far-see- 
ingand practical minds it was ever the good fortune of 
a State to engage in the sendee of its higher interests), 
that we reproduce it entire and without comment. 
New Orleans, May 29, 1884. 
Joseph Holt, M.D., President Louisiana State Board 
of Health: Dear Sir—lnasmuch as I was the author of 
the resolution calling for a conference of delegates from 
the Boards of Health of the States of Florida, Alabama,. 
Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, I greatly regret that 
absence from the city will prevent me from attending its. 
sittings. I hope the best possible results will flow from 
the conference, and that confidence and co-operation will 
be established between the health authorities of the States 
mentioned. The exclusion of contagious or infectious 
diseases from one is essential to the security of all the other 
States. The reasons that prevail in one State for zeal in 
excluding sickness exist with equal force in all the others. 
There is, therefore, every reason for mutual-confidence 
and such co-operation as will lead to the establishment of 
an effective system of quarantine that shall be common 
to all. 
The policy of health authorities in dealing with the sea- 
board should be to establish such of detention, 
fumigation and cleansing of vessels as shall be scientific 
and effective, and at the same time offer as little hind- 
rance as possible to commercial activities. In my judg- 28 
ment the theory of mere detention is a shallow conceit, 
and in itself is worthless. The views expressed by your- 
self on this point ought to be enforced upon the attention 
of the conference, and I sincerely hope you will take oc- 
casion to do so. A vessel that has been cleansed and 
fumigated is either clean or it is not. If clean, further 
detention is worse than useless ; it is oppression. 
There should be no hesitation in doing whatever is nec- 
essary to preserve the health of the Gulf States, but 
boards of health ought not to take a step beyond that. 
That is all that is required by reason or public sentiment. 
It does not belong to us to make war on commerce, but 
rather that our boards should become the protectors and 
the promoters of commercial communications. Your 
plan of such thoroughness in fumigating and cleansing 
a vessel at quarantine as that the official performing the 
service can say, after it is done, that the vessel is clean, 
will end all arguments for mere detention, and tend to 
promote commerce rather than to restrict it. 
Your plan also of a lower quarantine at New Orleans, 
as you are aware, is one in which I take a profound in- 
terest. It is a scheme also strictly in the interest of com- 
merce, and is only incipient to your broad and scientific 
plans mentioned above. Until these measures are carried 
into execution there can be no abatement in the rigors of 
quarantine as applied to non-infected vessels. 
But there remains another subject of inquiry by the 
conference which looks equally to the exclusion of sick- 
ness and the promotion of commerce. There should be 
an appeal to Congress to enact such laws relating to con- 
sular agents of the government in foreign ports as will 
require them to cause vessels in such ports, and about to 
load for ports in the United States, to be thoroughly 
cleansed in advance of receiving cargoes. lam aware 
that there are great difficulties in the way of such legis- 
lation, but whatever power is lacking in Congress might 
be reached through treaties or conventions. Would it not 29 
be advisable to urge upon Congress the importance of 
negotiating special treaties or conventions with the States 
in the tropics, providing for a system of international 
sanitation. The best method of quarantine sanitation 
should begin its work at the port of departure, and be 
completed at the port of entry, to include approved 
methods of ship sanitation, under competent authority, 
pending the voyage of a vessel from one port to another. 
The hazards of importation of infectious diseases would 
certainly be immensely reduced if there could be a guar- 
anty that all vessels loading in foreign countries for ports 
in the United States are thoroughly cleansed and rendered 
non-infected before being allowed to receive their cargoes. 
It will readily be perceived how such a system of inter- 
national sanitation, by preventing the shipments and ex- 
portation of disease, would insure safety and promote 
commerce. 
Herewith I submit preamble and resolutions on this 
vastly important subject, with the request that you will 
bring them before the interstate health conference, which 
is to meet here next Monday. 
As this is the short session of Congress, it will be im- 
portant to use all possible expedition in this matter, should 
it receive the indorsement of the Conference, in order 
that action may be taken in time to secure immediately 
the benefits of the system of international sanitation pro- 
posed. 
I respectfully submit the following preamble and reso- 
lutions, and request that the same, if they shall meet your 
views, be presented for the consideration of the Confer- 
ence. 
I am, dear sir, your obedient servant, 
Walter M. Smallwood. 
RESOLUTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL SANITATION. 
Whereas, In view of the rapid and intimate inter- 
course which the expanding commerce of the United 
States has established with all foreign and especially 30 
tropical countries has greatly enhanced the danger aris- 
ing from the importation and dissemination of infectious 
diseases ; and 
Whereas, It would greatly aid the vigilant and effi- 
cient health authorities of the national and State gov- 
ernments if measures could be taken, with the approval 
and co-operation of the foreign powers having dominion 
over this continent, its islands and its isthmus, as would 
effectually prevent the exportation and transportation of 
such infectious diseases from such ports and places as 
may be declared in quarantine by the executive authority 
of any State of'this Union; and 
Whereas, The constitutional authority of the national 
government in foreign countries, exercised through its 
ministers and Consuls, as well as its undoubted jurisdiction 
over its own vessels, or others clearing for entry in its 
own ports, will with the co-operation of our domestic 
guardians of the public health, furnish a continuous watch 
over all sanitary intercourse from the point of apprehended 
infection to any locality within our own country; there- 
fore, 
Resolved, That our Representatives and Senators are 
hereby respectfully requested to introduce simultaneously 
into both Houses of Congress bills— 
i. Extending the provisions of the act regulating the 
transportation of passengers and merchandise passed May 
3, 1855, and the acts amendatory thereof, over all ports 
and places upon the continents and islands of America so 
far as the same may be necessary or applicable, and also 
over all vessels and other vehicles clearing from such 
ports or places for the United States while in such foreign 
ports or places, or while in voyage or other transit between 
such ports or places of foreign departure and their des- 
tination in the United States. 
2. Conferring the force and sanction of law upon all 
sanitary ordinances issued by the Department of State, 
under the act of June, 1879, especially providing 31 
that all sanitary duties imposed by law upon consuls or 
commercial representatives of the United States, as well 
as upon shipmasters and owners or conductors of such 
vessels or other vehicles, shall be enforced by adequate 
and summary penalties, personal and pecuniary. 
That the President of the United States shall be em- 
powered and instructed to negotiate such conventions 
with the foreign powers hereinbefore referred to as will 
■effectually prevent the exportation of infectious diseases 
from any port or place within their dominions so declared 
in quarantine to any port or place in the United States; 
that the same may be incorporated as a means of inter- 
national sanitation in the legislative codes of all civilized 
nations. 
Resolved, That in consideration of the universal in- 
terest which the whole people of the United States have 
in the preservation of the public health against the impor- 
tation of infectious diseases, an appeal is respectfully 
■addressed to the members of both bodies of Congress, to 
permit the most prompt action upon the proposed measure 
of international sanitation consistent with the deliberation 
due to a subject of such vital importance. 
Resolved, That copies of the foregoing resolutions, 
properly attested by the president and secretary of this 
health conference, be forwarded to the Representatives 
and Senators in Congress from the several States border- 
ing on the Gulf of Mexico, and other members of Con- 
gress who may be expected to take an interest in them. 
Resolved, That a committe of three be appointed by 
the chair to enforce these resolution by a proper memorial 
to Congress. 
Adopted as part of the maritime committee’s report. 
INTERSTATE NOTIFICATION OF AN ACTUAL OR “ SUSPI- 
CIOUS” CASE OF PESTILENTIAL DISEASE. 
Under the terms of the compact entered into between 
health authorities of the States of the gulf and Tennessee, 
June 2, 3, and 4, 1884, and subsequently extended to, 32 
and its obligations assumed by, the majority of the States- 
of the Union and the Provinces of the Dominion of Can- 
ada, interstate notification of the existence of cholera, 
yellow fever or small-pox is compulsory. The parties to 
this compact are also compelled to report “ any case 
which presents symptoms seriously suspicious of the 
aforenamed diseases.” The following is the text of the 
agreement: 
Whereas, It is necessary for the protection and preser- 
vation of the public health that prompt information should 
be given of the existence of cholera, yellow fever and 
small-pox. Be it 
i. Resolved, That it is the sense of the National Con- 
ference of State Boards of Health that it is the duty of 
each State, Provincial and Local Board of Health in any 
locality in which said diseases may at any time occur, to 
furnish immediately information of the existence of such 
diseases to Boards of Health of neighboring and Provin- 
cial States, and to the local Boards in such States as have 
no State Board. 
2. Resolved, That upon rumors or reports of the exist- 
ence of pestilential disease, and definite information not 
being obtainable from the proper health authority, this 
Conference recommends that the health officials of one 
State shall be privileged and justified to go into another 
State for the purpose of investigating and establishing the 
truth or falsity of such reports. 
3. Resolved, That whenever practicable, the investiga- 
tions made under the preceding section, shall be done 
with the co-operation of the State or local health author- 
ities. 
4. Resolved, That any case which presents symptoms 
seriously suspicious of one of the aforenamed diseases 
shall be treated as suspicious, and reported as provided 
for in cases announced as actual. 
5. Resolved, That any case respecting which reputable 
and experienced physicians disagree as to whether the 33 
disease is or is not pestilential, shall be reported as sus- 
picious. 
6. Resolved, That any case respecting which efforts 
are made to conceal its existence, full history and true 
nature, shall be deemed as suspicious, and so acted upon. 
7. Resolved, That in accordance with the provisions of 
the foregoing resolutions the Boards of Health of the 
United States and Canada, represented at this conference, 
do pledge themselves to an interchange of information as 
herein provided. (See Transactions American Public 
Health Association, Vol. XII, page 326.) 
PROMPTLY TELLING THE WHOLE TRUTH CONCERNING THE 
PUBLIC HEALTH AND ALL THAT APPERTAINS TO IT. 
The surest prevention of a conflagration is to quench 
the first spark; the surest preventive of an epidemic is to 
act on the mere possibility of the existence of infection. 
Hence the necessity of the term “suspicious” in the 
schedule of Interstate Notification. Without that term the 
compact is a mere fiction in effect; offering too palpably 
a convienient opening for evasion not to be availed of in 
the embarrassing emergencies of supposed pestilential 
first occurrance. 
Not proclaiming itself by such outward evidences as 
light, heat and smoke, but intangible, imponderable, in- 
cognizable in essence to any of the senses, except through 
objective symptoms of its existence, we must wage in- 
stant fight as we would with fire, upon the suspicion of a 
pestilential manifestation. The subtile nature of the 
essential agent of pestilence compels in practice the re- 
tention of the term “ suspicious” as applied to first cases 
of which we can not be assured unless willing to invoke 
the confirmation in '.ts epidemic spread. 
How infinitely better to proclaim and extinguish the 
spark and thus prevent further proof of its true nature. 
We can far better stand “ suspicion ” than we can “ epi- 
demic R 34 
In maritime sanitation we subject to treatment every 
ship coming from cholera or yellow fever regions, regard- 
less of bills of health, however clean; while in municipal 
sanitation we attick, in loco, with the same agents of de- 
struction applied with the extremest exaction of scientific 
requirement, the slightest signs of these diseases. 
To cite an instance of the latter : Small-pox declared it- 
self in nine distinct foci during the winter of 1884-85 in the 
most crowded parts of this city. Being treated with these 
agents of destruction—bichloride, immersion of all things 
before leaving room, isolation, with nurse wiping all sur- 
faces with the solution, immediate boiling of all clothing, 
etc. taken (bichlorided) from room, thorough sulphuric 
fumigation and bichloride washing of all surfaces, burn- 
ing mattresses and blankets after saturation for safety in 
removal—in no instance did the disease spread beyond the 
primary cases. Such would be true of cholera and of 
yellow fever if this sanitary treatment is timely and ap- 
plied boldly and lavishly. 
Communities themselves have encouraged the growth, 
and are wholly to blame for the pernicious and suicidal 
spirit of concealment of pestilential infections. They 
have pandered to the vicious passion of a trade element, 
as merciless as it is sordid and depraved, and ever ready 
to raise a hue and cry against a physician who makes 
properly known a case which his professional knowledge 
leads him to know or suspect to be a case of cholera or 
yellow fever; small-pox speaks for itself. The commu- 
nity in this matter, therefore, becomes not only a par- 
taker, but the instigator of this mighty guilt. The saloon 
keepers, innkeepers and petty tradespeople have fostered 
many a sweeping epidemic. 
Feeble-spirited and superserviceable health authorities, 
and even bureaus of government, timorously submitting 
to the dictum of this unrighteous mammon, have sup- 
pressed, and do now suppress the truth; have falsified 
reports; and have consigned States and nations to the 35 
ravages of unresisted pestilence, when thousands of lives 
might have been saved, at least by timely flight, and dis- 
tant communities, forewarned, might have protected them- 
selves. 
Witness the outrageous transactions in France, Spain 
and Italy during the prevalence of cholera in 1886, and 
witness the scenes being now transacted in Eastern 
Europe, together with repeated and common occurrences 
of like kind in town and country in our own land in times 
gone by. 
From to-day’s papers we quote the following Associated 
Press telegram: 
London, July 25th.—The Time’s St. Petersburg corre- 
spondent says: “Nobody takes the official cholera re- 
turns as the real state of things. Efforts are made to 
conceal the facts. It will be felt more as a hinderance 
to commerce than as a danger to the population.” 
As custodians of a sacred trust, health authorities must 
be true to their allegiance, and that allegiance demands 
perfect candor and timely warning to the people ; not only 
of a community, but of all communities whom it may con- 
cern. Yea, more! This principle of action should be 
woven as a living thread into the texture of international 
relations. It should exist as an essential element in the 
comity of nations. 
Health authorities must at all times be courageous, bold, 
and ever ready for any sacrifice in resisting and putting 
under foot the insolent power that would make of them 
instruments for a cowardly and perfidious service. 
The subject of prompt announcement is so woven into 
the affairs of practical municipal and maritime sanitation 
as to necessitate its fullest recognition as an elementary 
and indispensable part. 
Let the world beware of a 'politic board of health! for it 
is a body without truth ! The one must and invariably does 
subordinate the other. 36 
It is inconsistent with every known law of God, of 
every principle of sound policy and of well-doing among 
men, that an individual, or a city, or a Slate, can success- 
fully protect itself behind the flimsy barrier of a lie, par- 
ticularly in dealing with the phenomena of nature. 
It is not the proper way to deal either with the phe- 
nomenon itself, or the inhabitants who are subject to its 
mischievous action. 
If a case of cholera occurs in a city and be hidden un- 
der the disguise of a simple intestinal derangement “ to 
avoid -public clamor and injury to the commerce and reve- 
nues of Statej' as was done in Naples, in the cities of 
Spain and in Marseilles, the last hope of destroying the 
contagion is wiped away, and thousands of lives and the 
general ruin of industry must pay the penalty of a sordid, 
short-sighted, wretched policy. So of small-pox and so 
of yellow fever. 
The deadliest enemy of a State is the man guilty of in- 
tentional concealment. It is a capital offence and should 
be made statutory by legislative enactment. 
THE COMMISSION OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 
The Board of Health has provided for the City of New 
Orleans a Commission of Medical Experts for the diag- 
nosis of the first reported case of cholera or yellowr fever. 
The idea was to form a tribunal composed of gentlemen 
chosen from the highest rank in the medical profession. 
Any two or more of the members of this commission 
being called in consultation are competent, with the at- 
tending physician, of rendering a diagnosis, which must 
be accepted; and is not to be critically traversed by the 
Board of Health. The Commission is a court of highest 
appeal whose decisions are final. 
If there is unity of affirmation of a case as cholera or 
yellow fever, it is so reported. If there be one dissenting 
voice and two affirming, believing, or suspecting a case as 
cholera or yellow fever, the case is published by the 
board as suspicious. 37 
This Commission of Experts, twelve in number, is so 
distributed as to make at least two of them quickly avail- 
able in any quarter of the city. 
Many times has the commission been called upon since 
its creation, without the slightest ripple of public excite- 
ment; and had it reported any one of these cases as yel- 
low fever, there would have been no subsequent contro- 
versy on the ground of diagnosis. 
The State is certainly indebted to the gentlemen who 
have accepted, without remuneration, the grave responsi- 
bilities of this commission, for public services of. the 
highest value. 
INTRODUCTION OF THE BICHLORIDE OF MERCURY. 
See letters of instruction to Dr. Thomas Y. Aby, 
Quarantine Physician, page 43- 
THE QUARANTINE METHODS OF LOUISIANA MARITIME 
SANITATION. 
There assembled in New Orleans, June 2, 3, and 4, 
1884, a “ Conference ” composed of the health authori- 
ties of all the gulf States and Tennessee, invited by the 
Louisiana State Board of Health, to discuss the proper 
means of doing away with the mutual distrusts, the lack 
of confidence, the crimination and recrimination which 
had been engendered in the past, and which had so often 
erected shotgun quarantines, established blockades of 
railroad trains, created stoppages and detention of vessels 
and goods on the great highways of commerce, and ex- 
posed passengers, even delicate women, to cruel delays, 
barbarous exposure and treatment, and the thousand 
other evils that are the natural concomitants of insane 
panics. 
At the very inception of that conference it devolved upon 
the president of the Louisiana Board to read a paper in 
which he proposed in detail a system of sanitation which 
would cure the defects of the existing methods of quaran- 38 
tine against infected ports; which, by the use of scientific 
and improved appliances, would enable a ship to pass up ta 
her destination in twenty-four or forty-eight hours, if not 
with perfect and absolute security to the public health, at 
least with a thousand-fold stronger guarantee than the 
then present system. 
The whole conference, composed not only of theoretical 
scientific experts, but of men whose experience for years 
had been perhaps greater in the practical operation of quar- 
antine than any on the face of the globe, solemnly and 
unanimously declared that the adoption and maintenance 
of the system and method proposed would be more than 
satisfactory to them; that if the State of Louisiana would 
adopt and put it into practical operation, they would go 
home to their people and their State authorities and tell 
them that they could rest assured in the perfect security 
that all that human science could do for their protection 
was being done; they would proclaim a truce to shotgun 
quarantines, the stoppage of trains, and all the other bar- 
barous interruptions of trade, commerce and social inter- 
course. 
The following extract from a communication to His 
Excellency Samuel D. McEnery, Governor of Louisiana* 
January 2, 1888, more fully elucidates this subject: 
As the executive officer and representative of the State 
Board of Health, I was invited by the American Public 
Health Association, through its president, Dr. George M. 
Sternberg, then chairman of the Committee on Disin- 
fectants, to prepare a description of the Quarantine system 
of Louisiana, and an explicit account of the methods of 
disinfection employed. 
This paper, containing carefully prepared wood cuts 
from photographs and drawings, was presented at the 
meeting of the American Public Health Association, at 
Memphis, in November, 1887* 
Inasmuch as this report constitutes a complete exhibi- 39 
tion of the system in all of its parts, we have the honor to 
submit it for your consideration. 
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
President Board of Health State of Louisiana. 
Joseph Holt, M. D., 
Gentlemen of the Committee; In describing the 
methods of disinfection used in the quarantine of Loui- 
siana, it is first to examine the system itself 
synthetically. 
There are three maritime approaches to New Orleans : 
the Mississippi river, which is the central and main ave- 
nue; the Rigolets, thirty miles to the eastward, a narrow 
strait connecting Lake Pontchartrain with Lake Borgne 
and the Gulf of Mexico; and the Atchafalaya river near 
its debouchment into the bay of that name and Mexican 
gulf, eighty-two miles to the westward. 
On account of the character of shipping coming 
through the two lateral approaches, “light in tonnage 
and mostly from domestic ports,” the Rigolets and Atcha- 
falaya are completely closed by a proclamation of forty 
days’ detention against all vessels from quarantined 
ports, compelling such to seek the Mississippi as the only 
available route to New Orleans. This is done in order 
to avoid the immense expense of keeping up three com- 
pletely equipped stations, and to concentrate at a single 
point the fight against infection. 
The quarantine in the Mississippi is a system composed 
of three stations, the first of which is an advanced guard 
inspection station, situated at Port Eads, one hundred and 
ten miles below New Orleans, where the waters of South 
Pass are jettied into the gulf- (See plate i.) 
When an inward bound vessel comes into the offing, 
she is immediately boarded by a thoroughly skilled medi- 
cal officer, and a careful inspection is made of her sani- 
tary record and present condition. 
If from a non-quarantined port and all is well, she is given 
pratique and goes on to the city. If from a quarantined port. 40 
but presenting a clean health record of voyage, and no 
evidence of sickness of a dangerous or doubtful character, 
she proceeds to the upper quarantine station, situated on 
the left bank of the river, seventy miles below the city, 
where she is subjected to a full course of sanitary treat- 
ment, and is detained such length of time (not exceeding 
five days, except in rare instances, where further obser- 
vation may be deemed necessary), as the board of health 
may provide. 
Ift upon the inspection of a vessel entering the river, 
she is found to be foul—that is, showing positive or sus- 
picious evidences of infection, either in a person then ill 
or in a foul health record of voyage, she is at once re- 
manded to the Lower Station, for infected vessels onl}r, 
located on Pass a L’Outre, an unused outlet of the Mis- 
sissippi, one hundred and three miles below the city. 
The sick, if any, are at once removed to the hospital, 
where every provision has been made for them. The 
medical care and the comfort of sick passengers and 
sailors at the Station for Infected Vessels Only, has been 
made a chief consideration in the construction of the sys- 
tem, and should offer the tenderest ministrations of a 
modern hospital. The vessel, with the well on board, is 
dropped down stream a few hundred yards and anchored. 
In the meantime the quarantine tugboat with its complete 
disinfecting outfit (see plate 2) has been telegraphed for 
and speedily arrives from the upper station, when the 
work of disinfection begins and does not cease until the 
vessel has been subjected to the most vigorous application 
of solution of the bichloride of mercury; her atmosphere, 
below deck, completely replaced with one heavily charged 
with sulphurous oxide, and every article of baggage and 
ship’s wardrobe has been saturated with the mercuric 
solution. 
A ship known to be infected with one of the three great 
pestilential diseases—small-pox, cholera or yellow fever— 
can stand and must endure extraordinary treatment, even 
if clothing is wetted and some articles damaged. “ They 41 
who go down to the sea in ships” assume the perils of the 
voyage, among which is this occurrence of finding them- 
selves on an infected vessel and being compelled to 
undergo cleansing, for they have no right to bring their 
perils ashore and endanger others. (The early invention 
of the steam disinfection chamber soon relieved all pos- 
sibility of such damage as above mentioned in bichloride 
wetting.) 
The immediate segregation of the sick and the well, 
•and disinfection of the ship and all baggage (in,the case 
of a cholera infected vessel extended to the disinfectant 
washing out and refilling of the water tanks, destruction 
■of the food supply and revictualing the vessel) constitute 
the treatment of an infected vessel at this station. The 
ship, together with all on board, is held for observation a 
period of ten days more or less, accordingto circumstances, 
when she is released and proceeds to the Upper Station, 
where the processes of sanitary treatment are repeated, 
with the addition of the use of moist heat applied to bag- 
gage, ship’s apparel, etc. (which latter process will be 
described hereafter), and the vessel is then allowed to 
proceed to the city. 
This course of treatment at the Upper Station, while 
•probably unnecessary, is enforced purely as an extraor- 
dinary precaution. 
Inasmuch as infected ships are the exceptions, but in- 
asmuch as also the Board of Health will take no risk in the 
case of vessels from known infected or suspected ports, 
regardless of bills of health, the vast majority of vessels 
are treated at the Upper Station. 
Arriving at this station, the vessel is brought alongside 
the wharf, All on board—officers, crew and passengers 
—are at once sent ashore, where they find ample accom- 
modation in commodious shelter, provided for their en- 
tertainment during the time occupied in the sanitary treat- 
ment of the ship and all baggage. (See plate 3). 
As soon as this is completed they are permitted to return 
.aboard ship, where they remain under observation during 42 
the prescribed period, determined by the remoteness or 
nearness of the port against which these precautions are 
taken. 
The object of this brief detention for observation, 
after the sanitary treatment of the vessel has been com- 
pleted, is to allow for a probable outbreak of an infec- 
tious disease already incubating in the system of any one 
on board. 
As an essential part of the service there is a tugboat 
of sufficient power to move a sailing vessel to or from 
the wharf. (See plate 2.) 
In addition to this requirement, this boat is equipped 
with a complete outfit for generating and applying ger- 
micidal gas for displacement of the entire atmosphere 
within the ship, transported, perhaps, directly from some 
infected port. In the hold of this tug is constructed a 
wooden tank of 2000 gallons capacity, to hold the bi- 
chloride of mercury solution for the treatment of vessels 
in the Lower Quarantine, as described. This tank is 
furnished with a steam pump (made of iron on account of. 
the greater resistance of that metal to amalgamation) sup- 
plied with three-quarter-inch rubber hose. 
In the sanitary treatment of a vessel in quarantine, there 
are three processes of disinfection concurrently applied. 
APPLICATION OF BICHLORIDE OF MERCURY. 
The first is the wetting of all available surfaces of the 
vessel, excepting cargo, but including bilge, ballast, hold, 
saloons, forecastle, decks, etc., with a solution of the bi- 
chloride of mercury, made soluble by an equal weight of 
muriate of ammonia, in the proportion of one part to one 
thousand of water. 
The idea of using this agent as a disinfectant in muni- 
cipal and “maritime sanitation” suggested itself to me 
while reading the chapter on “Wound Disinfection Anti- 
septics” in the volume entitled “The Treament of 
Wounds,” by Lewis S. Pilcher, M. D., containing an. 43 
account of the experiments of Dr, George M. Sternberg,, 
with a table of chemical agents and their relative germi- 
cidal strengths, at the head of which stands the bichloride 
of mercury, and also a table of the results obtained by- 
Koch in Berlin, 1881, and by Schede and Kummel in the 
Hamburg General Hospital in the same year. 
The Board of Health immediately endorsed the idea 
and ordered the adoption of the bichloride of mercury, as 
explained in the following letter: 
New Orleans, July 17, 1884. 
Dr. Thomas Y. Ahy, Resident Physician Mississippi 
Quarantine Station: Dear Sir Because of the signal 
failure of carbolic acid as a disinfectant and prophylactic 
agent after a trial more fair and extended than has ever 
been allowed any other; because of its excessively offen- 
sive odor and the oppressive and sometimes mischievous 
effects of its fumes ; because of the low order of the com- 
mercial acid as a germicide and the considerable expense 
involved in its use, you are hereby requested to discon- 
tinue its application. 
In its stead I have ordered to your station two packages 
of bichloride of mercury and muriate of ammonia, the 
latter to act as a solvent. 
In its preparation for use, take five and a half ounces 
of each and dissolve in a half gallon of water; add this 
to forty gallons of water in a cask. I have sent three 
large watering pots, with a fine lose or spray. Your men 
can quickly wet down a ballast pile and all available sur- 
faces of a ship, and it needs no repetition when once: 
thoroughly applied. 
The advantages of this agent are briefly these: The 
mercuric bichloride stands pie-eminently above all chemi- 
cals as a universal germicide. Not only are definite or- 
ganisms immediately destroyed, but all protoplasms and- 
albuminoids are devitalized by it. It is efficient to accom- 
plish this work when applied in a solution so weak as not 
to be recognized except by chemical reagents. It is devoid 44 
of color or smell. It does not poison the air by vaporiz- 
ing, but adheres in an innocuous form to the surfaces 
upon which originally applied. Its cost is about one- 
eighth that of carbolic acid. 
I feel that this transition is quite as much of a relief to 
you, my dear doctor, as to the afflicted people on ship- 
board, who must surely suffer severely from the stifling 
fumes emanating from carbolic acid applied to surfaces 
heated by a July sun, as the people of this city can testify 
to their terrible cost! 
The position of persons confined on shipboard under 
such circumstances, particularly in the instance of women 
and children as passengers, as related by yourself, must 
at times be most distressing. The board of health heartily 
joins with you in the satisfaction and sense of relief af- 
forded by this change, which is an important step in the 
,great work of humanizing our quarantine. 
I remain, with great esteem, yours very truly, 
(Signed) Joseph Holt, M. D., 
President Board of Health, State of Louisiana. 
The bold adoption of this poisonous agent in domestic, 
municipal and maritime sanitation at once called forth a 
hood of most gloomy forebodings of fearful effects upon 
the human system. 
Our declaration at that time is confirmed by an expe- 
rience of four years’ trial on an immense scale, that our 
standard solution, as used in sanitation, is absolutely 
harmless to persons unless swallowed, it matters not how 
extensive or constant the contact. The only objection 
we have yet'discovered is that certain articles, particularly 
blankets and flannels, treated by the solution sometimes 
become spotted, and colors liable to “ run ” when wetted, 
suffer; but unlike all other chemical agents applied as dis- 
infectants, the textile itself is in no wise injured. 
Recapitulating its merits ; being colorless, stainless (ex- 
cept as stated), odorless, not injurious to fabrics, perfectly 
safe to handle for months at a time, easily applied and 45 
exceedingly cheap, it is impossible to imagine a substance 
more efficient and as free from objection in practice. It 
is indeed the key unlocking difficulties otherwise insur- 
mountable, and rendering practicable in municipal and 
maritime sanitary work the efficient execution of scientific 
requirement. 
The amalgamating powers of the mercuric salt present- 
ed many serious obstacles in the contrivance of an ap- 
paratus for its application, all of which have been over- 
come without sacrificing simplicity, efficiency or econ- 
omy. 
Immediately adjoining the quarantine wharf, and near 
its water edge, is constructed a substantial frame-work of 
piles each twelve inches in diameter. This structure has 
an ample base, is pyramidal, and fort}7-five feet in height 
above mean level of the river. On top of this is a circu- 
lar wrought iron tank, capable of holding eight thousand 
gallons of the mercuric solution. (See plate 3.) 
In order to prevent contact of the latter with the iron, 
the interior of the tank is painted over with three coats of 
red lead and two of paraffine paint. The top of the tank 
is closed by a secure cover to prevent access of light to 
the solution. This, together with the general exterior, is 
painted black. 
On the top of this cover is placed centrally a sixty-gal- 
lon wooden cask, in which is dissolved the mercuric saltr 
which is then emptied into the tank through a wooden 
faucet. Seventy pounds are used for one charge. This 
is done just before filling the tank in order to insure 
mixing and uniform strength of solution. 
In the tank near the lower edge are three heavy gal- 
vanized iron or wooden faucets, to each of which is 
screwed a lead of three-quarter inch, four-ply rubber 
hose, the farther ends of which lie on the wharf. These 
are lengthened by additional sections to reach any part 
of the vessel. To the far extremity of each hose is fitted 
a wide-spreading, watering spray-rose. 46 
During disinfection, all three hose are simultaneously 
used, fore, aft and amidship. 
For spraying, we use a perforated, heavy block-tin 
rose, four inches across the face, similar to an ordinary 
watering-pot spray and heavily coated inside and out with 
red lead, finished heavily with asphalt varnish. These 
are made with a shank about six inches long, to fit snugly 
into the open end of the pipe. Except the wooden faucets 
at the tank above, stop cocks must be dispensed with. 
Bending the hose upon itself near the spray-rose and 
securing with a string controls the stream* 
On a smgle vessel we average fifteen hundred gallons 
■of solution, but often use three thousand. 
The process requires from thirty minutes to two hours, 
according to circumstances. 
The decks, forecastle, saloon, bunks, ballast and all 
such parts as are usually treated with carbolic acid or 
disinfectant fluids, objectionable on account of odor, stain- 
ing and inefficiency, are freely wetted with this solution 
{one to one thousand) of the bichloride of mercury: but 
never the cargo. 
SULPHUROUS OXIDE FUMIGATION. 
As soon as the men have completed the work of “ bi- 
chloriding ” below decks, the fumigating pipe is then 
extended from the quarantine tugboat lying alongside. 
(See plates 2 and 3.) It is lengthened by sections, being 
fitted together like stove pipe, and conducted down a 
convenient hatchway to the bottom of the hold or as near 
the kelson as possible, preparatory to the fumigation of the 
entire vessel (and cargo if any) with sulphurous oxide. 
In the case of a sailing ship, one hatchway gives access of 
the sulphurous gas to the entire hold ; but in large steamers 
the hold is subdivided by bulkheads into two or more 
distinct compartments, which must be treated separately. 
In undergoing treatment, the cargo is not disturbed, 
except when the removal of bags of coffee is required, to 47 
permit the passage of the fumigating pipe, which is twelve, 
inches in diameter, down into the dunnage at the bottom 
of the cargo. 
I have given explicit instructions to coffee importers, 
whereby the expense of removing bags to make this well 
or shaft through the cargo may be avoided. It is neces- 
sary to have an open, frame-work shaft, allowing a clear 
inside space of fifteen inches, placed in the centre and 
down to the dunnage of the main hatch in a sailing vessel, 
or in the centre of each hatch in a steamship having 
bulkhead compartments. The frame work of this shaft 
is set before loading, and should be cut flush with the 
top of the cargo. 
This simple arrangement avoids all handling and delay. 
When the connections are made and the fumigating 
pipe is arranged the fan on the tug boat is started, and 
the process of displacing with sulphurous oxide the en- 
tire atmosphere within the ship begins. 
The length of time required to complete the fumiga- 
tion varies from thirty minutes to three hours, according 
to size of vessel, number of compartments, etc 
The quantity of commercial roll sulphur used varies 
from 200 to 700 pounds per vessel. 
The apparatus invented for rapidly evolving and sup- 
plying the germicidal gas consists in a battery of eighteen 
furnaces, each supplied with a pan to contain the sulphur 
■during combustion. These furnaces open into a common 
reservoir, to the farther end of which is connected a pow- 
erful exhaust fan (Sturtevant’s No. 29). (See plates 4 
and 5.) 
The gas drawn by the fan is driven into a twelve-inch 
galvanized iron pipe, through which it is conducted over 
the side and down the hatchway of the vessel into the 
bottom of the hold. 
The gas, as it is driven into the vessel, is quite hot, but 
would instantly extinguish rather than create fire. 
The outflow should not impinge directly against bags 48 
of coffee or bales of textiles, if it can be avoided, in order 
to prevent formation of sulphuric acid and some slight in- 
jury therefrom at that point. 
In treating coffee, and for convenience in some other 
instances, the vertical lead of pipe into the hold is made 
of asbestos twilled cloth, closely and heavily woven for 
our purpose. 
Every opening is closely battened during the process 
and remains so for at least eight hours after it is discon- 
tinued. 
The apparatus throughout is made ample in size and1 
power for rapidity of work and economy in wear and tear, 
by lessening velocity and friction. The fan is run by a 
special engine at a slow rate as compared with its capa-< 
city, but driving into the ship 180,000 cubic feet per hour 
of atmosphere surcharged with sulphurous oxide. 
[lt is evident, in doing this, that we displace the mephitic and dan- 
gerous atmosphere closed in the ship when she started from Rio, we will 
suppose, and which, if allowed, would have been set free at our wharves 
the yellow-fever infected atmosphere of Rio to commingle with the 
atmosphere and the other factors of spread, deadly ripe, perhaps, for its 
reception. We displace this not only with a non-infected atmosphere, 
but with one intensely germicidal—one that destroys organic elements 
in this, and on exposed surfaces, with instant greediness. Its use as 
proven in practice is perfectly compatible with the preceding bichloride 
wetting—the expected chemical reaction between the two not taking 
place at all, or too slowly to impair the virtue of either. ' Let this be 
remembered. 
Incidentally to the sulphurous disinfecting process is the unspar- 
ing and complete destruction of vegetable mould, of rats, roaches and 
all other vermin; which is an excellent gross test of efficiency. 
Captains of the great British West Indian and other tropical liners,, 
and of long-voyaged sea-tramps, have repeatedly assured us that the 
instantaneous and thorough ridding of their ships of the infesting 
vermin, sometimes amazing in quantity and destructiveness, is alone 
worth double the quarantine fee. 
While in quarantine, vessels and cargo are subjected to thorough disin- 
fection without disturbing cargo. Miscellaneous freights being cased in 
seaworthy packages and closely stored are uninjured by the fumigation, 
and are in perfect position for its accomplishment. Breaking out is 
never called for. 
The peculiar manner in which coffee is compactly stored aboard ship, 
almost hermetically encased in the narrowest possible compass, presents 49 
•seemingly a formidable mass of cargo in bulk to treat, while in fact it 
presents an opportunity for thorough disinfection, for which we can 
never again hope, after breaking cargo. 
Besides, the fact that the sulphurous gas is heavier than air, and being 
piped to the kelson fills the vessel from below upward, like carbonic acid 
or water, it is important to remember that it is driven in under a high 
velocity. From all influences combined, including the law of diffusion 
of gase<, we have indubitable evidence that it penetrates every part of 
the compact mass of cargo, and displaces the resident atmosphere. If 
the coffee is dry and merchantable, there is no trace of effect upon the 
grains; if, however, it is damp and sweating, and therefore more or less 
spoiled, there is some bleaching, determined in intensity by the degree 
of moisture. The effect upon the color is quite compensated in the 
check upon fermentation in an ill-conditioned cargo. 
The amount of sulphur used varies from 200 to 700 or 1000 pounds, 
according to size, condition, etc., of vessel. 
The present results as compared with three weeks’ detention of a 
32,000-bag cargo in steamer, and $3OOO as loss in quarantine and sub- 
sequent outbreak of yellow fever, as has happened, are sufficiently' en- 
couraging. 
The sulphurous fumes not only displace the atmosphere of the open 
hold, but penetrate the interstices of cargo, and make their way freely 
into the bilge through the airstrakes and limbers, and displace the at- 
mosphere between the skin and ceiling. As to a steamship, the condi- 
tions due to construction are of the simplest kind.] 
APPLICATION OF DRY AND MOIST HEAT. 
While these two processes of sanitary treatment of the 
vessel are going on, all bedding, ship’s linen, cushions, 
mattresses, flags, mosquito nets, curtains, carpets, rugs, 
all personal baggage and wearing apparel of whatever de- 
scription, are removed from the ship to a commodious 
building in close proximity in which these articles are 
treated by moist heat at a temperature of not less than 
230 deg. Fahrenheit. 
The apparatus for this work consists in a steel 40 horse- 
power steam boiler (see plate 8), for supplying steam to 
a superheating chamber a few feet distant, and which I 
will now describe. (See plates 6 and 7.) 
The dimensions of this chamber, taken interiorly or in- 
side measure, are 60 feet long, n feet wide and 7 feet 
high. 50 
The frame work is composed of 3x3~inch seasoned pine 
lumber, joined as in the construction of a frame house. 
Upon the outside of this frame work (and corresponding 
to weatherboarding in the case of a house) is nailed 
tongued-and-grooved flooring material three-fourths of an 
inch thick by six inches wide. 
The inside or interior of the ends, rear and top of the 
chamber is ceiled with the same material and a flooring of 
the same is also laid. Upon these interior surfaces is 
tacked heavy ‘‘Russian Hair-cloth or Felting;” and upon 
this, at intervals of three feet, are nailed parallel strips of 
wood inches, and, in turn, upon these strips is fast- 
ened another sheathing or ceiling of flooring plank, as al- 
ready described. 
This secures an air space between the hair-cloth and 
inner ceiling. Upon this now smooth interior surface of 
wood is finally tacked and held in place by very broad- 
headed nails, or better, by nails supplied with tin discs or 
washers, a double layer of “ Asbestos Building Felt,” 
well lapped and securely tacked; thus rendering the in- 
terior of the chamber fire-proof. 
By the foregoing described construction it will be seen 
that the walls of the chamber, which are eight inches in 
thickness, consist of seven non-conducting media; first, 
the outer layer of planking; second, three inches of air 
space; third, an inner ceiling of planking; fourth, one 
inch thickness of “ Russian Hair-cloth;” fifth, one and 
one-half inch air space; sixth, a third layer of three- 
fourth inch planking ; seventh, a double layer, or interior 
lining, of heavy asbestos felting. 
The front wall is divided into forty panels, eighteen 
inches wide each (see plates 6 and 7), which represents 
that number of racks contained within the chamber. 
Upon the bars of these racks the clothing, etc., is 
hung for exposure to disinfection by moist heat. (See 
plate 7.) 
These racks are constructed with a front and rear panel 
united bv horizontal bars, six to each side. Each rack 51 
is suspended overhead, on traveling rollers, upon an iron 
rod which extends from the rear wall of the chamber to 
a support ten feet in front of the chamber; the rod, there- 
fore being twenty feet in length. 
By this arrangement overhead, the racks may be drawn 
out and pushed in with facility, thus avoiding tracks or 
rods on the floor obstructing the movements of employes 
When drawn out the full length of ten feet, the rear 
panels of the racks securely close the chamber, as do the 
front panels when the racks are pushed in ; thus admitting 
of the heating of the chamber during the time of hanging 
the articles of clothing, etc., on the rack bars preparatory 
to disinfection. 
For this admirable device and, indeed, for the entire 
skeleton of the superheating chamber, including the dry- 
heat double steam coils, we are indebted to the Troy 
Laundry Machinery Company, Chicago, 111. have 
found the purchase of this apparatus, constructed to in- 
clude certain of our specifications, to be the most economi- 
cal and satisfactory we could have desired. 
The interior surface of each front panel is lined with a 
layer of Russian hair-cloth, over which is applied a double 
layer of asbestos felting. 
At intervals of seven and one-half feet a bulkhead of 
one-inch tongued and grooved flooring is constructed, sub- 
dividing the chamber into eight compartments. These 
bulkheads, or partitions, are made fire-proof by a covering 
of a double layer of asbestos felting. The object of this 
arrangement is to provide against the spread of fire in the 
event of its occurrence. 
In addition to this provision there is a double lead of 
one-inch fire hose connected with a steam pump near the 
boiler, and at all times ready, within fifteen seconds’ notice 
to turn on two streams of water upon any rack on which 
fire might have originated. 
These minute specifications concerning provision against 
fire are particularly appreciated by ourselves; it cost us 52 
two fires and the destruction of a large amount of prop- 
erty to learn a lesson which experience alone could 
teach. Lacking experience and precedent, these acci- 
dents could not have been foreseen, and therefore could 
not have been provided against. They were the result of 
an underrating, and failure to appreciate the prodigious 
force which the contrivance invented placed at our will to 
invoke. 
Under the present arrangement, including early use of 
free steam, fire is hardly possible; but if it should occur 
we are prepared to draw out instantly the burning panel, 
to strip it of clothing and to put out the fire. 
With reasonable care and watchfulness on the part of 
the employes there need be absolutely no danger of loss 
by fire. 
The superheating of this chamber is so provided as to 
furnish at will dry or moist heat, or both; and by a turn 
of the hand a temperature of 300 deg. F. can be obtained. 
Within and at the end of this chamber next to and con- 
nected with the boiler are two manifolds, one above the 
other, to which is connected a system of forty-five three- 
quarter inch steam pipes (aggregating 5509 lineal feet), 
placed horizontally near the floor of the chamber, run- 
ning its full length, and supplied with a “bleeder” for 
conveying off the water of condensation. 
This double coil furnishes the dry heat. (See fore- 
shortened view, plate 9.) 
Above and in close proximity to this system of pipes is 
extended a horizontal screen of galvanized iron, one-half 
inch mesh, to catch and so prevent the coming in contact 
with the superheating pipes any article falling from the 
racks. (See plate 7.) 
The moist heat is supplied by a one-inch steam pipe laid 
centrally in the midst of the above described dry heat 
pipes and running the entire length of the chamber, con- 
stituting a steam-main, connected with the boiler and con- 
trolled, as the others, by a ball valve on the outside. 53 
This pipe is perforated by eighty one-twelfth-inch holes, 
so placed as to furnish steam to each rack. 
During the time of hangingthe articles of clothing, etc., 
on the racks, the dry heat is turned on and the temper- 
ature raised to about 190 deg. F., made known by a 
thermometer having a large mercurial column, and sus- 
pended near the centre of the chamber, working on a 
slide or traveling rod in such a manner, when it is de- 
sired to make a reading, as to allow of being drawn for- 
ward (by a cord extending outside) to a long, narrow 
pane of glass set in the panel. This thermometer should 
have a scale of at least 275 deg. 
As each rack is filled it is put back into place. By the 
time the last of the articles has been hung on the racks, 
the entire mass of the material within the chamber has at- 
tained a temperature between 190 deg. and 200 deg. F., 
when free steam is turned on, the thermometer speedily 
rises to a point varying between 230 deg. and 240 deg. F., 
at which it is maintained for a peiiod of twenty minutes. 
The steam pressure in the boiler, at the beginning of 
this process, registers between 100 and no pounds by the 
steam gauge; at the end of the process of blowing in 
steam the pressure will have fallen to about sixty pounde. 
The steam is now entirely cut off from the chamber, 
the racks are drawn out and their contents removed. 
During the process of steaming, every article is per- 
ceived to be saturated and intensely hot, the steam per- 
meating to the interior of mattresses, double blankets, 
etc.; but so great is the heat in the texture of the fabrics 
as to immediately expel all moisture upon drawing the 
racks and exposure to the open air. Shirts, collars, etc., 
instantly assume the crisp dryness they possessed before 
exposure, losing the musty smell of long packing in a 
trunk. Silks, laces, the most delicate woollen goods show 
no signs of injury whatever from the treatment. 
Of course, articles of leather, rubber and whalebone 
would be injured by the heat and are therefore disinfected 54 
with the mercuric solution and not permitted to go into 
the heated chamber. 
Time required to charge chamber with apparel for dis- 
infection, thirty minutes; time required for moist heat, 
twenty minutes; for removal of articles, fifteen minutes ; 
a total of sixty-five minutes. 
A large steamship, particularly a passenger vessel, may 
require two or three charges of the chamber. 
Amount of coal consumed, from two to four barrels 
per vessel. 
In the summer ©f 1885 we devised and put up a cham- 
ber of the above general plan, but wholly inadequate as 
to size for the requirements of our service. This was re. 
placed by one operating on the same principle, but fifty 
feet long and supplied with a twenty horse-power boiler, 
which latter proved too small for rapid work. This ap- 
paratus was burned last spring. 
Our present chamber and supply boiler are of the di- 
mensions given in the appended plates. 
We prepared the plans of the foregoing described ap- 
paratus during the summer of 1884. Obtaining a liberal 
appropriation of $30,000 from the State Legislature for 
the avowed purpose of establishing a new system of 
quarantine through the elaborations of purely experi- 
mental work; and thoroughly endorsed and sustained in 
all of our efforts by the progressive spirit of the press of 
New Orleans and by the merchants, we put the new sys- 
tem into practical operation and threw open the Missis- 
sippi to commerce June 10, 1885. 
As it stands to-day, we sincerely believe in a nearly 
perfected state, it is the consummation of experimental 
effort, through a long and tedious process, beset with 
difficulties of the most perplexing and often dishearten- 
ing kind. 
Without precedent; having to deal with natural forces 
of prodigious power; repeatedly encountering unexpected 
difficulties; meeting with accidents; obliged continually 55 
to devise improvements upon our several inventions and 
continually combatting a surly discontent and sometimes 
violent opposition from those subjected to the sanitary 
processes while these were still in an imperfect and un- 
satisfactory stage Of development, the modernizing of 
quarantine and bringing it into line with other branches 
of science and art in the general progress has been an 
expensive and difficult task. 
We submit to your Honorable Committee the foregoing 
plans and specifications of the “ System of Quarantine” 
established by the State of Louisiana in order to place 
the results of our experience in the hands of those who, 
like ourselves, are compelled to resist pestilential invasion 
by maritime quarantine. 
We do this, encouraged by the hope that others may 
find in these results matter worthy of consideration and 
beneficial in strengthening their defences against a com- 
mon enem}'. 
The following are the requirements imposed upon all 
vessels arriving at the quarantine stations in the State of 
Louisiana during the quarantine period, beginning about 
Mav 1 and ending October 31 of each year. 
ANNUAL QUARANTINE PROCLAMATION. 
Executive Department 
State of Louisiana. 
Whereas, On the 14th day of April, iS , the Board of Health of the 
State of Louisiana have adopted resolutions requesting the Governor to 
issue his proclamation of quarantine to take effect on the Ist day of 
May, iS—, at noon, in accordance with the following provisions; 
All vessels arriving at the several quarantine stations in this State to- 
gether with their crews, cargoes and passengers, shall be subjected to 
inspection by the quarantine officers at said stations. 
All vessels, together with their cargoes, crews, passengers and bag- 
gage, arriving at the Mississippi River Quarantine Station from inter- 
tropical American and West Indian and Brazilian ports shall be sub- 
jected to thorough sanitation according to the following schedule, to-wit- 
First Class—Vessels arriving from non-infected ports. 
Second Class —Vessels arriving from suspected ports. 
Third Class—Vessels arriving from ports known to be infected. 
Fourth Class—Vessels which, without regard to port of departure, are 
infected; that is to say, vessels which have yellow fever, cholera or 56 
other contagious or infectious disease on board at time of arrival, or 
have had same on voyage. 
Vessels of the first class to be subjected to necessary maritime sanita- 
tion at the Mississippi River Quarantine Station, without detention of 
either vessel or persons longer than may be necessary to place such ves 
sels in perfect sanitary condition. 
Vessels engaged in the tropical fruit trade and coming from known 
non-infected ports, whose sanitary condition and health record are satis- 
factory, may be allowed to pass the quarantine stations after inspection, 
subject, however, to such regulations and sanitary treatment as the 
Board of Health may prescribe. 
Vessels of the second and third classes to undergo the same conditions 
as those of the first class, together with detention for ob-ervation for a 
period of three full days from hour of completion of sanitation. 
Vessels of the fourth class to be remanded to the lower quaratine sta- 
tion, there to undergo sanitation and detention of vessels and persons 
such length of time as the Board of Health may determine. 
All vessels arriving from ports known or suspected to be infected 
with yellow fever, cholera or small-pox, or which may hereafter become 
infected, shall be subjected to maritime sanitation and such detention as 
the Board of Health may determine. 
Vessels arriving from the above named ports and places, and belong- 
ing to the second, third and fourth classes, as set forth in the above 
schedule, shall not be allowed to pass the Rigolets, the Atchafalaya, the 
Lake Borgne Canal, or Lake Charles Quarantine Stations, or other 
State quarantine stations which may hereafter be established, without 
having undergone a period of detention of forty days and thorough 
cleaning and disinfection. 
Now, therefore, in accordance with the laws of this State in such case 
made and provided, and upon the recommendation of the Board of Health 
of the State of Louisiana, I, , Governor of the State of Lou- 
isiana, have thought proper to issue this my proclamation of quarantine, 
directing that quarantine shall take effect from and after the ist day of 
May, 189—, at 12 o’clock m., against the above named and designated 
ports and as contained in the above schedule. 
Quarantine officers at the several stations in this State are specially 
charged and required to strictly enforce the execution of this proclama- 
tion, and the State Board of Health is requested to prosecute vigorously 
all violations of the same as well as the quarantine laws and regulations 
of this State. 
In testimony whereof I have hereunto affixed my signature authen- 
ticated with the seal of the State of Louisiana, at the city of Baton Rouge, 
this day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
hundred and ninety and the one hundred and of the indepen- 
dence of the United States of America. 
[seal] 
Governor of Louisian a. 
the Governor: 
Assistaiit Secretary of State. 57 
SPECIAL SUGGESTIONS TO OWNERS, AGENTS, MASTERS 
OF VESSELS AND PASSENGERS. 
The Louisiana State Board of Health recommends the 
following suggestions to agents, owners, masters of ves- 
sels and passengers for the purpose of facilitating the 
work of quarantine officers and reducing the period of 
detention to a minimum: 
i. That vessels should be stripped during the quaran- 
tine season of all woollen hangings, carpets, curtains and 
such like materials, and upholsteied furniture, as far as 
practicable. Hair or moss mattresses to be replaced by 
wire or wicker beds. 
2. That as far as possible vessels trading with tropical 
ports should be manned with acclimated crews. 
3. Masters of vessels, ship and consular agents are 
earnestly requested to instruct passengers from quaran- 
tinable ports to dispense, as fai as possible, with baggage 
which may be injured by wetting, in case of pestilential 
outbreak on board, while undeigoing disinfection. Such 
passengers are especially warned against bringing silks, 
laces, velvets and other fabrics of delicate texture, as they 
will be compelled to assume all risks of injury. 
4. While in ports infected with yellow fever, vessels’ 
should be anchored out in the harbor when this is possi- 
ble, and the crew prohibited from going ashore, especially 
at night. 
5. When practicable, cargoes should be loaded in such 
a manner as to allow access to the pumps, and also to 
enable the quarantine officials to pump out and wash the 
bilge. 
6. Special attention should be given to cleanliness of 
vessels and persons, and provision should be made for 
all possible ventilation of the entire vessel. The best dis- 
infectants and instructions foi using same can be obtained 
by application to the Board of Health or any of its* 
officers. 58 
7* Masters should, before arrival, see that the bilge is 
thoroughly pumped out and cleansed, and that the entire 
vessel be put in such good sanitary condition as to permit 
of the least possible detention. Fruit vessels particularly 
should be kept thoroughly cleansed for the purpose of 
avoiding delay at the Quarantine Station. 
8. Vessels observing the above recommendations will 
receive special consideration at the Quarantine Station, 
detention and cost of cleaning, disinfecting, etc., being 
materially lessened thereby. 59 
NEW ORLEANS 
(PLATE 1.) CHART OF THE MIS- 
SISSIPPI RIVER FROM NEW 
ORLEANS TO THE GULF, SHOW 
ING LOCATION OF THE OUAR- 
ANTINE STATIONS. 
distances 
New Orleans to Upper Station, 70 
miles. ’ ' 
New Orleans to Lower Station, XOa 
miles. 0 
New Orleans to Port Eads, 110 miles. 
!UIP-PEK STATION 
rLOWfe ROTATION 
Jetties 
POBTEfIUS 
Station 61 
(PLATE 2.) TUGBOAT WITH FUMIGATING APPARATUS. 
a. Furnace, b. Reservoir for reception of gas, c. Discharge pipe, conveying gas to ship’s hold. d. Escape pipe 
for gas when fan is at rest and sulphur is burning; closed by a valve when fan is in motion, e. House pro- 
tecting from weather the machinery for driving fan and containing accelerating gearing. F 63 
(PLATE 3.) 
View of disinfecting wharf, showing tug fumigating vessel; elevated tank containing Soco gallons of bichloride 
of mercury solution, 3 leads of hose from tank to ship. Gangway leading to building containing super- 
heating chamber. & & r 65 
(PLATE 4.) FUMIGATING FURNACE, RESERVOIR AND EXHAUST PAN. 
a. Furnace of cast iron. one. half inch thick, 3 feet wide, 3 feet long:, 2 feet high. Upper and lower plates grooved for reoeption of 
partition and sides shouldered for same, as shown in plate 4. b. Reservoir, No. 10 iror, same dimensions as furnace, c. Exhaust 
pipe connecting reservoir and fan. d Exhaust fan, Slurtevant’s No. 29, Medium Planing Mi'll Exhauster, e. Discharge pipe 
from fan made of No. 20 galvanized iron. /. Driving belt. Height of legs supporting furnace and teaervoir, 10 indies. On reser- 
voir at letter h should be shown a 12-inch opening for escape pipe as indicated (d) plate 2. (PUATE 5.) FRONT VIEW OF FUMIGATING FURNACE, 
Dimensions of each compartment inches. Pans of cast iron 5-16 inch thick, 11 inches wide and 2 feet 10 inches long outside 
measure. Free space above pan about 1% inches. 69 
(PLATE 6.) FRONT VIFAV OF CLOSED SUPERHEATING CHAMBER (60 feet long). 
a. Panels, b. Hods upon which panels are suspended and travel, c. Outer support of rods. d. Rollers suspending panels on r*ds, 
e. Fire hose. 71 
(PLATE 7.) SUPERHEATING CHAMBER; TWO PANELS DRAWN OPEN. 
a. Panels. (Two lower rack bars not shown.) b. Rack bars. c. Rollers, d. Iron bars connecting front and rear panels, e. Rods upon 
which panels are suspended and travel, f Rear panel. Galvanized iron %-inch mesh screem in bottom ot chamber. 73 
(PLATE 8.) BOILER AND STEAM CONNECTION WITH SUPERHEATING CHAMBER. 
t. Steam-main from boiler, b. Pipe supplying dry heat, c. Pipe supplying moist heat. d. Bleeder, e. Pipe from pump supplying fire hose, 
f. Front of chamber, g. End view of chamber. 75 
(PLATE 9.) 
Superheating steam coil or dry heat. b-b. Perforated steam pipe for moist-heat, 58 x8 feet. 77 
REGULATION OF THE TROPICAL FRUIT TRADE AND PAS- 
SENGER TRAFFIC. 
The rapid growth of the tropical fruit trade and exten- 
sion of territory furnishing supply, the impossibility of 
obtaining prompt and reliable information concerning the 
health status of the numerous towns and settlements scat- 
tered along the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Coasts of 
Central America, and adjacent islands, compelled a deci- 
sive policy regulating the importation of fruit in order to 
prevent the coincident importation of pestilence. Even a 
casual consideration of the subject would suggest that 
which experience has abundantly proved: The impossi- 
bility of allowing passengers and baggage from these 
tropical ports pratique without precautionary treatment 
and delay. 
Permitting the entry of fruit is itself a great privilege; 
but one which can safely and properly be allowed under 
the present explicit stipulations of avoidance of all infected 
ports, together with immediate notification of the Board 
of Health, of any sign or rumor of pestilence in a locality 
within the territorial limits of the fruit region; but to 
extend this privilege to the bringing of passengers and 
baggage during the quarantine period, without treatment 
and delay, would be not only hazardous, but certain to 
result in the introduction of pestilence, especially yellow 
fever. 
The Board of Health will not accept the promises of 
good faith or in anywise assume a responsibilit}' for the 
same from a body of traders, few of them native to the 
State, some aliens, and all bent upon making money, some 
of them at any price, when the interested employes of 
these are suddenly brought under a tremendous pressure 
of temptation, such as a fruiter may find itself, when ap- 
proaching the Jetties, inward bound with a rapidly perish- 
able cargo of $30,000 or $60,000, or more value; and 
having on board also a case of yellow fever or a suspicious 78 
case. The temptation is too apparent. We will not trust 
them, and so lead them into temptation, but will deliver 
ourselves from evil. 
In order to relieve, as far as possible, this source of dan- 
ger, the Board has placed trustworthy and competent 
medical officers at each of the export stations. These 
keep the ports and vessels under surveillance and report 
to the board. 
The first duty of the Board of Health is to protect the 
public health ; its second duty is to remove from com- 
merce every possible hindrance. 
In conformity with these perfectly co-related and con- 
sistent duties the Board of Health promulgated in 1886, the 
following letter, sending it to all persons, at home and 
abroad, concerned in the tropical fruit trade: 
To Whom it May Concern: The people of Louisiana, 
through their legally appointed Board of Health, have 
found it essential and imperative for self-preservation that 
they shall maintain a system of strict quarantine against 
all ports and regions in which pestilence is known to ex- 
ist, or in which it possibly may exist without their knowl- 
edge. 
In fulfilling the conditions of this demand it is not left 
to the option of the health authorities to take risks or in 
any manner to put in jeopardy the health of this city and 
State. It matters not what private interests may be in- 
volved or whose going and coming may be impeded, it is 
peremptory that the Board of Health shall secure to this 
people every protection against pestilence that human in- 
telligence can devise, and to that end shall make every 
other consideration subordinate. 
While the Louisiana Board of Health recognizes not 
only the necessity but its own duty in removing every 
possible obstacle from the currents of trade, it can not con- 
template any measure which endangers the public safety. 
Ten years ago the intertropical fruit trade was limited to 
the small Bay Islands and a narrow strip of the adjacent 79 
coast. Since then the area of this trade has steadily in- 
creased until it now embraces the whole Honduranean 
and Central American gulf and Caribbean seaboard, in- 
cluding many ports which are in open communication with 
Colon and other infected or suspected ports. 
Inasmuch as the bananas and other fruit constituting 
the export of the aforenamed fruit regions are produced 
on plantations isolated from the towns, and all cargoes 
must be lightered far out from shore on account of shoal 
water along the entire coast line, the Louisiana Board of 
Health has been able to foster this fruit trade by imposing 
those restrictions necessary to a guarantee of safety, 
namely: That the vessels engaged in this trade shall em- 
ploy acclimated crews, and during the summer and early 
fall shall restrict themselves rigidly to the bringing only 
of fruit and other products of the plantations. It being 
distinctly stipulated and understood with them, the owners 
and masters of the aforementioned fruit vessels, that, if 
bringing passengers, the ship and all on board must un- 
dergo quarantine the same as required of all other vessels 
bringing passengers and cargo from intertropical Ameri- 
can and West Indian ports. 
The fruit importers claim that the detention in quaran- 
tine is destructive to the perishable fruits which almost 
exclusively constitute the cargo of their vessels. 
Under the provisions already mentioned, the Board of 
Health has been enabled to extend a special privilege to 
the fruit trade. 
So long as these conditions are complied with and 
maintained by the latter, just so long will the Louisiana 
Board of Health be enabled to continue its assistance; but 
the moment that a violation of any principle of quarantine 
is insisted upon or in any manner practised or attempted 
to be practised by those engaged in the tropical fruit 
trade, by combining with it the bringing of passengers 
with their baggage, etc., from ports in regard to which 
we have no reliable assurances as to their absolute ex- 80 
emption from pestilential infection, the Board of Health is 
then compelled to declare a violation of agreement, and to 
withdraw from the fruiters all special privileges, and to 
make them undergo full quarantine as provided by law in 
the case of vessels from quarantined ports. 
The Louisiana State Board of Health has given the 
matter most profound consideration, and after having re- 
garded the question from every point of view, has found 
itself forced to the conclusion that there can be no further 
compromise; that there can be no combination of the 
fruit trade and passenger traffic on the same vessel dur- 
ing the summer and early fall; that the carrying of pas- 
sengers during that time must be by vessels specially in- 
tended for that purpose and which can fulfil, in detention 
and in every other requirement, the quarantine regula- 
tions of the State. 
The Board of Health does not object, nor has it ob- 
jected, to passengers from intertropical ports coming to 
Louisiana on any vessel, provided said vessel, together 
with all persons and things on board, undergoes the pre- 
scribed quarantine treatment and detention required of 
such vessels. 
By order of the Board of Health, State of Louisiana, 
Joseph Holt, M. D., President. 
IMPROVEMENT IN APPARATUS. 
When compelled to withdraw for a considerable season 
from the field of his labors, on account of impaired health 
due to unceasing work and a continual strain of harass- 
ments and anxiety in the public behalf, during the long 
period of creative and experimental effort in effecting the 
change from a six months’ interdiction of commercial in- 
tercourse with the most promising field of adventure to 
the proclamation throwing open the port of New Orleans 
to the maritime world, and permanently establishing the 
same, the inventor, reserving to himself no privilege of 
patent, but earnestly hoping that his successors would 81 
steadfastly maintain a zeal in perfecting the details of 
the system, urged this course upon them as the highest 
official duty. 
Fortunately for the realization of these hopes, the Board 
of Health shortly came into possession of $36,000, secured 
by the decision of the United States Supreme Court, be- 
fore mentioned, which enabled it to pursue a course of 
bold, experimental evolution on the largest scale. As a 
result, very important changes were made in the per- 
manence of construction and higher efficiency of the moist 
steam disinfecting chamber and in the sulphur-oxide 
generator. 
In this connection it is with extremest regret we are 
compelled to forego the reproduction of the very lucid and 
in every respect admirable paper of President R. S. Olli- 
phant, M. D., contained in the biennial report of the 
Board of Health to the General Assembly of Louisiana, 
1890-1891. This report, however, being widely dis- 
tributed, relieves a necessity otherwise imperative. 
Special mention, just here, is due the name of Dr L. 
F. Salomon, the secretary of the board, whose rare 
ability, energy and conscientious performance of every 
duty have so largely contributed to the success and pres- 
tige of the Louisiana Board of Health. 
To test the efficiency of the apparatus, Dr. J. J. 
Kinyoun, the eminent bacteriologist of the United States 
Marine Hospital Service, in response to a request by the 
board, was commissioned by Surgeon General John B. 
Hamilton to apply to the germicidal methods of the new 
system the exacting tests of the highest requirement. 
There was no one a more interested observer of the 
growth, or who recognized in the new system greater 
possibilities, than did Surgeon General Hamilton himself. 
The labors of Dr. Kinyoun at the Louisiana quaran- 
tine led him to point out the direction of needed higher 
operative efficiency in apparatus, and to suggest the pos- 
sible methods of accomplishing it by the use of the moist 82 
steam heat under a few -pounds pressure, for greater per- 
meating power, and also the need of a higher percentage 
of the sulphur dioxide. 
His views concerning disinfection by moist steam under 
pressure were adopted and applied, the board being aided 
by Mr. Edgar L. Stream, a thoroughly trained mechani- 
cal engineer of this city, whose professional inventive 
acumen and technical skill enabled the board to realize in 
practice the steel steam disinfecting cylinders for the 
reception of baggage and all ship’s textiles, such as bed- 
ding, curtains, etc., which has proved an efficient inven- 
tion. (See plates 10 and n.) 
The improvement in the sulphur apparatus consists in 
adapting to quarantine use a sulphurous gas generator, 
after the plan of the Bonnabel Bisulphite of Lime Co.’s 
generator. This was done by the present administration 
under the skilful guidance of Dr. Joseph Allbrecht, 
chemist of the United States Mint. 
A novelty connected with its use is the supplying to the 
burning sulphur air drawn from the ship’s hold, thus 
rapidly intensifying the sulphurous percentage. (See 
plates Nos. 12 and 13.) 
The development of maritime sanitation has been 
greatly facilitated from the period of inception to its per- 
fection by the singular accuracy of observation and sound 
judgment of Dr. Thomas Y. Aby, a master in the science 
and art of quarantine. His equal in such a work is scarcely 
possible. 
During the last four years, and until recentlv, the sys- 
tem has been most successfully administered by Dr. Wm. 
G. Austin, Quarantine Physician, and a veteran expert in 
the diagnosis and management of yellow fever. 
The Louisiana quarantine as it now stands, tried and 
approved by tests and time, has attained, we believe, a 
degree of efficiency closely approximating perfection, as 
generally conceded, and is established beyond the ex 
perimental stage. 83 
This important incident of completed growth, in ad- 
dition to the highest attainment of its purpose, also relieves 
further expenditure in apparatus improvement; a matter 
of great importance to its value and the reputation of the 
service. 
Being now sufficient in all requirement, and so ac- 
knowledged by all, it is earnestly to be hoped that this 
fact, as much a physical fact now as it can or will ever 
be, shall be peremptorily insisted upon, and future inter- 
ference firmly repressed, except when indicated by long 
experience, trustworthy in motive and with special con- 
sent of the board. 
If this is not done and with a firm hand, each incoming 
accession of medical theoretical experts, perhaps failures 
in practice, will deem it a duty they owe themselves and 
families to endeavor to achieve some reputation, other- 
wise impossible, by attempting to set aside the work of 
their predecessors by a systematic belittling and resorting 
to any and every process of eliminating them and substitu- 
tion in order to leave their own private mark on the system. 
Such vulgar pandering to one’s own littleness must nec- 
essarily result in an over-refinement and excess of evolu- 
tion, failing presently to kill rats and roaches, while hypo- 
thetically double-killing pathogenic germs; at enormous 
expense to the shipping and the State, invoking danger- 
ous risks to the city and entire country, and all for the per- 
sonal gratification, perhaps, of some person whose over- 
weening vanity and inordinate lust for a little notoriety 
checks at no impulse. Against all such an absolute inter- 
diction should save the people, and save also the State’s 
quarantine plant from becoming an experimental station 
and a school for professional tinkerers. Tears of intelli- 
gent labor in affiled maritime sanitation can alone make 
an expert. 
Maritime Sanitation is a complete, practical acknowl- 
edgment and a declaration of allegiance to the germ 
CONCLUSION. 84 
theory of the great pestilential infections, just as the 
word quarantine carries w'ithin itself the inborn idea of 
prolonged detention ; a virtual acknowledgment of utter 
ignorance of all the conclusions established by modern 
observation of the phenomena of these diseases, confirmed 
by microscopic research and experimental tests in the an- 
nouncements of Pasteur, Koch, Klein, Pettenkofer, Stern- 
berg, Reeves, and a host of able coadjutors. 
Scientific research has but confirmed the inevitable con- 
clusions deduced from the observed epidemiological and 
clinical conduct of these diseases, wdiich had already 
compelled a belief in the substantive nature, or so-called 
germ theory, of their origin. 
This sometime hypothesis, is n© ingenious figure of the 
imagination, but a doctrine hammered into shape by sheer 
force of logic and necessity, and is now a demonstrated 
fact. Every phenomenon of measles, scarlatina, diphtheria, 
small-pox, cholera, yellow fever, and septic infection of 
wounds, gives a sledge-hammer blow, driving into us the 
idea of a living organism, a definite entity, as the essential 
cause of each, differing in kind according to the disease, 
and all pointing to their destruction as the only rational 
remedy. 
Laying aside certain hypercritical sophistries and the 
off-hand denunciations of constitutional objectors, even 
against Jenner himself, we now declare the germ theory 
of those diseases no longer hypothetical, but a crystallized 
verity; so that in contending against the introduction of 
pestilence along the highways of commerce we no longer 
oppose mysterious phantoms with the suggestions of su- 
perstition, but fight a real and defined enemy in a ship’s 
hold, baggage, clothing, infected house or traumatic lesion, 
wfith substantial shot and shell, so to speak, potent to de- 
stroy. 
Even in our municipal management bonfires of tar- 
barrels, religious processions and long-drawn invocations, 
or even relics, no longer count as disinfectants. These 85 
methods have swamped us invariably. Their failure has 
compelled us to change the personality of our enemy. 
We no longer fight the machinations of the devil, the 
devil himself or an angel brooding destruction, but an 
infinitesimal thing—a living ferment—a little leaven 
which touches corruptibly the whole blood, and, if not 
promptly destroyed, speedily “ leaveneth the whole 
lump.” 
If the essential or originating principle of small-pox, 
yellow fever and cholera can be demonstrated to exist 
within a finite and circumscribed limit, as in the field of a 
microscope, on the point of a scalpel, within the compass 
of a hypodermic syringe, house or the hull of a ship, and 
is capable of indefinite extension beyond that limit, it is 
conclusive that the essential cause or virus, having power 
of extension can only do so by reproduction. It is, there- 
fore, a living entity, and being definable m loco, it can be 
destroyed in loco. 
This is the sum of all the law governing maritime san- 
itation. The hypodermic syringe or the infected ship 
we may destroy by fire; the pestilential infection within 
will likewise be destroyed. 
The same line of reasoning extends to other agents 
than fire. If every known disease-producing form of 
life can be destroyed with the bichloride of mercury, the 
concentrated fumes of sulphurous gas and exposure in the 
superheated moist steam chamber, the conclusion is 
inevtable that hypothetical organic forms can also be 
destroyed. Seeing the germ satisfies the intelligence, 
and confirms belief, but is not essential to the validity of 
disinfection; neither the pathogenic primary of small-pox 
or of yellow fever have been reliably exhibited. 
If there is any truth in the germ theory—and no propo- 
sition admits of clearer proof in demonstration and infer- 
ence—then may we confidently declare that “ Maritime 
Sanitation,” as conducted in the stations of Louisiana, is 
worthy of acceptance as offering the highest attainable 86 
guaranty against pestilence importation. It is the trans- 
position or transferrence bodily of the Listerian principles 
and precautionary exactions from the field of surgery to the 
municipal and maritime domain of preventive or State 
Medicine. Aseptic and antiseptic surgery applies to the 
individual as affecting his body; the other applies to the hu- 
man mass as affecting not only the issues of bodily suffer- 
ing, life and death, but in addition all that concerns human 
society in the aggregate, involving great questions of inter- 
national and interstate relations, industrial production and 
commercial movement, the social fellowship of commu- 
nities and families. As the one, in saving the individual, 
is great, just by so much more the other, in saving the 
social mass, is greater in the scope of its beneficent re- 
sults. The comparative magnitude of their importance 
is commensurate with the relative values of an individual 
and the commonwealth. This is a logical conclusion as 
just as it is apparent. 
OPINIONS ABROAD AND AT HOME. 
From the considerable mass of literature, such as re- 
ports of investigating commissions, editorials, published 
letters, etc., relating to the sanitary system of Louisiana, 
it is but just to the history of the work and its author to 
make some mention here indicating the general tone of 
these published criticisms, which is fairly set forth in the 
following: 
Extract from Report on Inspection of Quarantines of 
the Atlantic and Gulf, by John H. Rauch, M. D., Secre- 
tary Illinois State Board of Health, contained in the Eighth 
Annual Report of the Board, 1885, page 50: 
Accompanied by Dr. Joseph Holt, president of the State 
Board, and to whose indefatigable energy the recent practical 
improvements are mainly due, I made a personal inspection of 
the Mississippi river stations on the 15th, 16th and 17th of July 
last, and witnessed the inspection of vessels, the disinfection 
and treatment of an arrival from an infected port—a zooo-ton 87 
steamer; inspected another which had been treated two days 
before my arrival and was not yet released ; examined the ap- 
pliances for disinfection, etc., and the buildings, hospitals and 
other items of the quarantine plant. lam therefore enabled to 
endorse from personal observation the claim made that this is 
the most thorough and vigorous system of sanitary quarantine 
which has ever yet been enforced for the protection of a port 
from the introduction of foreign contagion into this country— 
if not in the world.” 
In the Tenth Annual Report of the State Board of 
Health of Illinois Dr. Rauch repeats his approval: 
“ With regard to New Orleans, I still endorse the claim 
made that ‘ it is the most thorough and vigorous system of sani- 
tary quarantine which has ever been enforced.’ ” * * * 
Acting for the California State Board of Health. Walfred 
Nelson, C. M., M. D. (member College of Physicians and 
•Surgeons, province of Quebec, Canada; late member State 
Board of Health, Panama, South America, etc.), visited the 
quarantine station on the Mississippi, in August, 1886, and 
after having made a critical examination of “ the exact working 
of that most admirable system,” he presented an elaborate re- 
port of the same to the California Board, which is contained in 
the Tenth Biennial Report of that organization, ISB6-18S8. 
After fully describing the bichloriding process, he says: “It 
will be but just to state that this excellent application of mer- 
curic bichloride was first thought out and applied by Dr. Joseph 
Holt.” Again, he says: “As Dr. Holt stands in loco farentis 
to this system, I have taken the liberty of dubbing it 1 the 
Holt System.’ His it is, and his should the honor.” 
“The exact beauty of the Holt system, briefly stated, is this: 
All germ life and spores are first and finally disposed of; 
secondly, cargoes are handled expeditiously at minimum ex- 
pense ; thirdly, absolute protection is granted the city of New 
Orleans; and ship masters and passengers suffer but small 
delay, six to eighteen hours being ample for this purpose; and 
after the vessel clears from the upper quarantine for the 
Crescent City, she is sweet, safe and healthy, and the State 
authorities know that vessels that have undergone this most cru- 
•cial of treatments are not carriers of disease ; they can not be. 
“ With the best of knowledge, born of experience, Dr. 88 
Holt years ago refused to recognize even the so-called clean 
bills of health from infected ports. I refer to the disease- 
producing and distributing centres of Colon, on the Isthmus of 
Panama, and Vera Cruz, on the Gulf coast of Mexico, the 
Caribbean, and the various ports of Cuba. All of them are 
constant sources of danger to ports trading with them, particu- 
larly southern ports. Previous to 1884, when Dr. Joseph 
Holt was elected president of the Board of Health of the State 
of Louisiana, old-time methods prevailed on the Mississippi, 
and owing to those old-time, unenlightened practices, com- 
merce on the Mississippi during the summer was practically 
killed. The detentions were lengthy, and the charges so heavy 
that commerce by way of the Mississippi during the summer, 
or fever months, was almost out of the question. Trade by 
the Mississippi goes on now in summer the same as in winter, 
it being practically unhampered, a result that could be obtained, 
and obtained only, by the most elaborate methods instituted by 
Dr. Holt. Unimportant branches of trade that hitherto were 
practically unconsidered, such as the tropical fruit trade, have 
taken on the handsome proportions of many millions per annum. 
For one consignment of coffee that was received under the old 
system, it will be safe to say that hundreds are received to-day 
in short, that the old-time method of quarantine, which debarred 
Louisiana of her just maritime trade, is now of the past. 
u In concluding this report, it is but just to Dr. Holt to state 
that he is the father of this most admirable of methods of mari- 
time sanitation, and that to-day in Central and South America, 
in Mexico and the West Indies, all health authorities speak of 
the Holt system with admiration. 
“ Quite recently, when in Port of Spain, Trinidad, one of the 
British West Indies, I learned from Dr. Leonard Crane, C. M. 
G., the Surgeon General of the Island, and Dr. C. Burgoyne 
Paisley, its ever vigilant health officer, that a system similar to 
the Holt system is about to be adopted there. I simply cite 
this to show how the good work done by Dr. Holt is bearing 
fruit, and how science, thanks to the conscientious and inde- 
fatigable workers of his type, is making constant strides. 
“ In conclusion, it will be safe to say that, knowing what we 
do of germs, germ life, and germicides, disinfectants and the 
like, Dr. Holt has combined all of the best methods for destroy- 
ing germs, and the result is “ An Ideal Quarantine.” 89 
From the proceedings of the National Conference of 
the State Boards of Health, held at Cincinnati, Ohio, 
May 4, 1888, and incorporated in the Fourth Annual 
Report of the Pennsylvania State Board of Health, 1888, 
we make the. following extract from the paper of Dr. 
Benjamin Lee, of Philadelphia, Secretary of the State 
Board, entitled: “ Should the National Government 
Assume the Control of Quarantine at Ports of 
Entry?” In the course of his argument in favor of 
“putting quarantine into the hands of the national govern- 
ment,” Dr. Lee says: 
“ Yet even if it (quarantine) be conceded to be a police 
regulation, its scope is not local, but extends over the whole 
country, and it would seem in justice that it should be exercised 
and paid for by the whole country. * * * * The great 
burden of protecting the nation should be borne by the nation. 
I am well aware that there is one brilliant and conspicuous ex- 
ception to the general rule of inadequate provision for, and 
inefficient administration of, local quarantine, that of the State 
Board of Health of Louisiana; but even there the resources of 
the entire State, and that a rich State, are at its back, and the 
result, moreover, has been attained only by the persistent energy 
and magnetic powers of a single individual, and may not long 
survive him.” 
Before the same conference of State Boards of Health,, 
and contained also in the Fourth Annual Report of the 
Pennsylvania Board, page 249, et seq., Dr. J. F. Kennedy,. 
Secretary of the State Board of Health of lowa, in a paper 
entitled “ Inland Quarantine as Against Cholera and Yel- 
low Fever ” said : 
“ So I might say in reply to the first question that the value 
of internal quarantine as against cholera and yellow fever is 
practically nil, owing to the numerous and gigantic difficulties 
in the way of its proper enforcement, ****** 
“In a general way I may say that all, at least all important 
ports of entry, should be, as they are supposed to be, quaran- 
tine stations. All large cities on the coast and inland should 
be prepared to promptly I'ecognize and as promptly isolate and 90 
take care of any case of cholera or yellow fever occurring within 
their respective limits. Should either disease break out in the 
largest or the smallest hamlet, the strictest measures should be 
instituted at once to isolate all infected or exposed persons so 
far as known; to quarantine the places of infection ; to disin- 
fect thoroughly, or destroy everything, including excreta, in, 
and especially everything liable to go out from, such foci of 
infection. * * * With such prompt isolation, quarantine 
and disinfection, I can see no practical benefits to be derived 
from local quarantine stations inland. 
“It occurs to me that we must look largely, and justly, too, 
to such stations and quarantine regulations as exist in the Mis- 
sissippi river below New Orleans, as so graphically described 
by our able colleague, Dr. Joseph Holt. Such stations located, 
managed and equipped as this has been, under the efficient 
directions of the Louisiana State Board of Health, if located 
at all our ports of entry, would afford the greatest, if not the 
only reliable, safeguard to our homes.” 
From proceedings of the National Conference of State 
Boards of Health at the seventh annual meeting, held at 
Nashville, Tenn., May 19 and 20, 1890, the following is 
extracted from the address of the president, Dr. J. N. 
McCormack, of Bowling Green, Ky. 
“ Indeed the quarantine system at New Orleans, devised by 
our distinguished colleague, Dr. Joseph Holt, seems now to 
reach almost to perfection in that particular branch of our 
health service, giving the greatest immunity from contagion 
furnished by present scientific knowledge, and at the same time 
interfering to the least possible degree with commerce and 
trade.” 
The New York Evening Telegram, May 19, 1891, 
says in a lengthy article under the caption “Scientific 
Quarantine, Old-Time Theories Condemned, New 
Orleans’ Perfected Process, How the Holt System is 
Worked.” ***** 
“ The subject of maritime sanitation or quarantine was en- 
veloped in Egyptian darkness, and it remained for Dr. Joseph 
Holt to perfect a system, conferring safety to the port and city 91 
of New Orleans, combined with a minimum of detention to 
■cargoes and passengers. Years of study and close observation 
and trials without number resulted in what his brother sanita- 
rians deem a perfected quarantine system, generally known 
among them as the Holt system, one that has been critically 
studied by sanitarians from many foreign countries and sister 
-States, and has received their unqualified endorsement.” 
The Marine Journal, New York, June 25, 1892, says 
editorially: 
“ During Dr. Holt’s term of office he invented and estab- 
lished what is known as the Holt system of maritime sanita- 
tion, a system of fumigation of ships against infectious dis- 
eases, that has, so far as known, been unequaled in this or any 
other country. 
“ The Marine Journal watched with a great deal of interest 
the work of Dr. Holt, and as it developed into unqualified 
success, we gave our readars the benefit of a full explanation of 
it, and personally congratulated Dr. Holt upon the great ser- 
vice he had done the port of New Orleans and the inhabitants 
of the Mississippi valley in inventing a process by which they 
have been kept free from yellow fever up to the present time. 
“ Dr. Holt was not only an expert in quarantine matters, 
but he took a lively interest in the American Shipping League’s 
work in the cause of the American ship, and attended one of 
its conventions held at Pensacola, and while there gave valua- 
ble aid to the meeting.” 
From the New Orleans Times-Democrat, June 17, 
1892, we extract as follows: 
“ The system of maritime sanitation which Dr. Holt con- 
ceived, elaborated and established at the quarantine station on 
the Mississippi river is practically the same to-day as it was the 
day he stepped down from the presidency of the Board of 
Health. A few improvements in matters of detail have been 
introduced into its working here and there, where actual ex- 
perience showed that there was room for improvement; but it 
is only in details, whose technicality forbids our dwelling upon 
them here, that any change has been made. The system, in its 
warp and its woof, in its fabric and its texture, stands precisely 92 
where it stood when it had the finishing touch put upon it by its 
author’s hand. 
“ This system, to which humanity owes so much, to which 
the material interests and the health and the happiness of New 
Orleans and the whole Mississippi Valley are under everlasting 
obligations, is known from one end of this western hemisphere 
to the other, and cordially recognized, as the ‘ Holt system.r 
It has been adopted at all seaports of the American continent 
which have Southern traffic connections, from the harbors on 
the Gulf and Charleston, S. C., to the St. Lawrence and Que- 
bec, and at San Francisco. There is not a board of health in 
a maritime district of the United States which has not sent to 
examine the working of this our quarantine system, and there 
is not a board of health which, after close and scientific ex- 
amination, has not adopted it, either in its totality or in all of 
its essential and distinctive features. 
“And these various boards of health have, without exception,, 
candidly acknowledged the source of their indebtedness. They 
have made their reports ring with the name and fame of the 
illustrious author of the system to which in common with our- 
selves they are under the heaviest obligations. It is, with 
each and every one of them, ‘ the Holt System of Maritime 
Sanitation,’ and it is pronounced by more than ‘one of them 
after experiment to be ‘an ideal quarantine.’ We have 
at our elbows, as we write these lines, many reports of boards 
of health, North, South, East and West, as well as much other 
documentary matter, referring to this subject; and we might 
cite from them scores of pages in which the New Orleans sys- 
tem of quarantine is held up as a model, and in which Dr. 
Holt receives by name unstinted and grateful recognition of 
his work as being the true solution of the quarantine commerce 
difficulty. But our readers, we presume, will take these out- 
side tributes to the efficacy of the system and to the genius and 
ability of its author for granted, without the citations. They 
are ready, if called for.” 
From the same of the 19th June: 
* * * “ Dr. Holt never claimed the authorship of sulphur- 
ous acid or bichloride of mercury or heat as germicides, nor of 
yellow fever germs to be killed by them ; but w7hile the repre- 
sentative scientists of thirty-two of the powers of the world were 93 
in congress assembled at Rome, in 1885, to solve the one ques- 
tion of effecting a reconciliation between the necessities of com- 
merce and the greater necessity of protection against pestilence, 
which they utterly failed to accomplish, Dr. Holt, here in New 
Orleans, reached out and, by one mighty effort, grasped the 
entire field of sanitary science, and gathered into co-operative 
unity the several elements contributory to the modern system 
of maritime sanitation. He did not create any one of those 
•elements, but he combined them and invented the machinery 
necessary for their practical employment. The proof of all this 
is stereotyped upon the scientific and commercial pages of the 
world.” 
We also quote from the afternoon’s States of June 18th: 
“To focus the questions: What is the system conceived, 
invented and established as the interdependent maritime and 
municipal sanitary system? We merely state by title the several 
elements of our new sanitary system, of which Dr. Holt and 
his coadjutors stand truly as creators.” * * * * 
In addition to the general criticisms, all of like charac- 
ter with the foregoing, including the testimony of ships' 
officers and passengers, the actual adoption and enforce- 
ment of the “New System’’ by the Dominion of Canada 
for the port of Quebec, by the States of California and 
South Carolina for San Francisco and Charleston, by the 
ports of Mobile, and at this moment of Savannah (now 
introducing it), and in the British West Indies, as cited, 
together with the acceptance of its methods by the United 
States Treasury Department, and their application 
through the United States Marine Hospital Service, abun- 
dantly and sufficiently testify of the importance and com- 
pleteness of the work of the Louisiana State Board of 
Health in reconciling the industrial and trade factors of 
civilization with the paramount necessity of public health 
protection, by harmoniously associating 
Quarantine and Commerce. PLATE NO 13.—SIDE VIEW 
Of Improved Furnace for the production of Sulphur Dioxide Gas, showing sulphur furnace, reservoir and exhaust fan. Curved pipe carrying sulphur gas into reservoir contir.. 
ues on the inside to within six inches of bottom. Section of pipe connecting fan with reservoir curves upward inside of reservoir to within six inches of top. 
PLATE NO. 10—end view of open heating chambers, WITH RACKS DRAWN out. 
A—Spherical head and Heating Clyinder swung back. D—Traveling racks on which the material to be disinfected is hung. 
B—Turning Crane from which Cylinder head is suspended. E—Canvas over racks to prevent water dripping on racks. 
C—Heating Cylinder. H—Beams in shed from which tracks are suspended. 
PEATE No. 12.—FRONT VIEW. 
Of Improved Furnace for the production of Sulphur Dioxide Gas, showing sulphur furnace with fire box underneath, and curved 
pipe carrying the gas into reservoir. 
PLATE 11.—rear end oe heating chambers, showing steam connections.