Address by J.G. Thomas, M.D., Savannah, Georgia, in defense of the National Board of Health, against attacks in Congress, and on the importance of Sapelo quarantine station as a place of refuge for dangerous and infected vessels for the South-Atlantic states : read before the Savannah Citizens' Sanitary Association in September, 1882, and before the Georgia Historical Society in December, 1882.

  • Thomas, J.G.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address by J.G. Thomas, M.D., Savannah, Georgia, in defense of the National Board of Health, against attacks in Congress, and on the importance of Sapelo quarantine station as a place of refuge for dangerous and infected vessels for the South-Atlantic states : read before the Savannah Citizens' Sanitary Association in September, 1882, and before the Georgia Historical Society in December, 1882. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    was, and the law is perfectly plain, to prevent the entrance of cholera and yellow fever—which is a very different and a much more practical and important purpose. The Act of June 2d, 1879, made it the duty of the National Board to co-operate with, and, as far as it lawfully may to aid State and municipal boards of health in the execution and enforcement of the rules and regulations made by such boards to prevent the introduction of contagious and infec- tious diseases into the United States from foreign countries, and from one State into another. It will be observed how very careful the patron of the Bill had been to avoid any encroachment on the police powers of the local health authorities. The National Board has no authority under this law to grant free pratique to a vessel desiring to enter any of the ports of the United States, how- ever well satisfied it may be that such vessel is absolutely free from all danger of communicating infection. Here, in Savannah, it is well known that the operations of the Sapelo Sound station have been conducted with a strict adherance to this principle, and that the Superintendent, Dr. W. H. ElUott, one of our own citizens, has been instructed to give a pledge to the health authorities of the South Atlantic ports that the station was to be conducted purely as a place of refuge for infected vessels sent thither by the local quarantine officers, and that it was intended to be in aid of them, in conformity with the law. This is now fully recognized by the authorises from Charleston to Fernandina inclusive. They recognize, also, the inestimable value of such aid. Owing to earnest and emphatic representations to this effect by the health authorities of South Carolina, the entire delegation from that State, in both houses of Congress, supported the liberal amendments of the Senate to the nullifying appropriation Bill which had passed the lower house. It was reserved for a representative from Georgia to take an active and leading part in defeating the hopes of the Southern States, and to attempt to justify himself by a series of the most extraordi- nary misrepresentations. He avowed that the board has