REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. To the Honorable DAVID ENGELMAN, M. D., President of the State Board of Health and Vital Statistics of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. SIR: I herewith respectfully present my fourth annual report, in accordance with the requirements of our by-laws, and of the act under which our Board is organized. Since my last report the Board has held three regular, and four special meetings. The regular meetings were held November 9, 1887; May 16, 1888, and July 11, 1888. The special meetings were held November 30, 1887; January 11, 1888; February 29, 1888, and August 31, 1888. The past year has been one of unusual anxiety to all those who are charged with the grave responsibility of protecting the public health in the United States, and especially in this State. The four most formidable of the preventable diseases, cholera, small-pox, typhoid fever and yellow fever, have all been at our doors; two of them prevalent to an unusual extent within our borders. The threatening presence of the first named of these dreaded infections in a neighboring port, brought to your notice in the last annual report, led you to instruct the Secretary to take certain measures of precaution. In obedience to those instructions, the following letter was immediately addressed to his Excellency the Governor. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, STATE BOARD OF HEALTH, EXECUTIVE OFFICE, 1532 PINE STREET, PHILADELPHIA, November 12, 1887. To his Excellency, JAMES A. BEAVER, Governor of Pennsylvania: SIR: I am instructed by the State Board of Health to transmit to your Excellency the following resolution passed at its last regular meeting, held at Harrisburg, November 9, 1887. Very respectfully, BENJAMIN LEE, Resolved, That, in view of the continued prevalence of Asiatic Cholera in Italy and its recent importation into the harbor of New York, and of the acknowledged inadequacy of the present quarantine arrangements on the Delaware to meet a similar emergency, this Board respectfully requests his Excellency, the Governor of the State, to invite the chief executive officers of the neighboring States of New Jersey and Delaware to a conference, with a view to making joint application to the President of the United States for the grant of such portion of the reserve fund placed in his hands by Congress for meeting emergencies like the present, as may be necessary to immediately establish a National Quarantine Station, either on Pea Patch Island (the site of Fort Delaware,) or at the present Quarantine Hospital of the Marine Hospital Service at Cape Henlopen. Such station to provide ample and comfortable accommodations for quarantine of detention, inspection and observation and for the care of the sick, to be furnished with all the modern appliances for the disinfection of ships, cargoes, baggage and clothing, and to have an abundant supply of pure water. In response, Governor Beaver signified his readiness to take such coördinate action should the emergency become more pressing. At the same time the following communication was addressed to Surgeon General Hamilton: Dr. JOHN B. HAMILTON, Supervising Surgeon General, United States Marine Hospital Service, Washington, D. C.: SIR: I am instructed by the State Board of Health and Vital Statistics of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to transmit to you the enclosed copy of a resolution adopted at the regular meeting held November 9, 1887. Yours very respectfully, BENJ. LEE, Secretary. Resolved, That in the judgment of this Board, the present situation in regard to the continuance of cholera along the shores of the Mediterranean and its transportation to the port of New York, is of sufficient gravity to warrant the Surgeon General of the Marine Hospital Service in notifying United States Consuls at ports either themselves infected or near centers of infection, that emigrants sailing from such ports will not be allowed to land in this country, until competent authorities have declared that all danger of infection has ceased in those ports or places. 66 The resolution was acknowledged with thanks and published in the Weekly Abstract of Sanitary Reports," issued by the United States Treasury Department. Communication was also held with the State Boards of Health of Delaware and New Jersey upon the same subject, so that everything was in readiness for obtaining immediate and efficient aid from the National Government, had not the danger subsided. In order to guard against the introduction of the disease through the medium of infected immigrants or their effects, on their release from the New York quarantine, the following measures were adopted: |