Report of the committee on the utility of wet docks in connection with quarantines, and the propriety of placing the entire establishment under the jurisdiction of the United States government / Jno. W. Sterling, Alex. H. Stevens, Jno. McNulty, committee.

  • National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the committee on the utility of wet docks in connection with quarantines, and the propriety of placing the entire establishment under the jurisdiction of the United States government / Jno. W. Sterling, Alex. H. Stevens, Jno. McNulty, committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    cious, for, after discharging cargo, they would haul off to the middle of the basin for expurgation. That docks of such moderate dimensions would answer every needful purpose, we judge from the number of vessels which arrive from ports where Yellow Fever prevails during the Quarantine season. Dr. Whiting, ex-Health Officer, in his testimony before a Committee of the Legislature, stated that the number of sickly vessels, with Yellow Fever on board, from the 13th March, 1848, until January 1, 1849, a period of nine and a half months, was 44. According to the Report of Dr. R. H. Thompson, late Health Officer, 47 in- fected vessels from twelve ports, from the 1st of April to the 1st of August, 1856, sent into Marine Hospital fifty-eight cases of Yellow Fever ; and from the 16th of April to the 1st of August. 1858, forty-three vessels, from nine ports, sent to the Hospital ninety-eight cases of the same disease ; and Dr. Elisha Harris, ex-physician-in-chief of Marine Hospital, reports seventy-nine infected vessels from April 10 until October 4, 1856, of which number forty-one arrived in July, twenty in August, and ten in September. Now, when we take into consideration that all such vessels are not detained at Quarantine at the same time, and that as many sickly vessels arrive at New York as at any other port of the United States, the dimensions of the dock need not be larger than above mentioned. The advantages which Wet Docks possess over a break- water consist, not merely in accommodation and economy, but also in affording greater protection to the shipping. Major Delafield, of the IT. S. Engineers, testified before a Committee of the N. Y. Legislature, that a breakwater has no tendency to protect a vessel from the force of the winds ; their fury and power, in driving vessels from their moorings, is the same with as without a breakwater. It is only in resisting the force of the waves and heavy seas that such a structure is of any service.