338
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.

We think that the time of observation in such
cases of diarrhea should not be less than eight days
from the commencement of seclusion.

Persons having a medical certificate of being
sufferers from chronic or symptomatic diarrhœa
should follow the rule of the healthy, subject, how-
ever, to the discretion of the medical officer in
charge.

As the time occupied in the voyage between
England and the neighbouring ports is short, we have
not included it in the period of observation.

We further think that the complete disinfection of
the effects of persons coming from contaminated
places should be insisted on, and that the period of
isolation of the persons should be from the time that
they are separated from their suspected property.

All persons (including medical officers) employed
in the Quarantine Department who in any way come
in contact with the ships, passengers, crews or
effects, that have arrived from contaminated places,
should follow the same rules as the arrivals them-
selves.

With respect to persons detained in the sick
departments of the quarantine stations, the destruc-
tion or disinfection of all articles used by them
should be imperative.

The application of chemical disinfectants to the
discharges, the disposal of these below the surface of
the soil, if on shore, and beyond the possibility of
contaminating water used for drinking purposes, are
indispensable.

The above measures would require the following
conditions at each quarantine station :--

1. An establishment for the reception of the
   healthy, capable of completely isolating successive
   parties of arrivals in distinct classes, well separated
   from each other.

2. An establishment for the reception of the sick,
   with an isolated convalescent establishment.

Each of the above should be provided with latrines,
having moveable receptacles, which should be daily
emptied and purified.

3. An establishment for the purification of effects.

The establishments required would certainly be
large, but a small number of them placed on a few
points of the coast would suffice if all ships carrying
passengers from infected ports were made to pass
through them before receiving free pratique.

We consider that islands lying at some distance
from the coast would be the most desirable spots for
the institution of quarantine stations. On these,
wooden—or, still better, iron—constructions might
be rapidly raised. In summer weather isolated
camps, with tents, might be formed.

In the event of islands not being available, it would
be well to select some place on shore capable of
complete isolation, and at a considerable distance
from any inhabited quarter, or hulks moored at some
distance from the land, but never within rivers. It
will be obvious that several ships at each station
would be necessary for the efficient working of the
plans proposed.

The principle of isolation, adapted to special
circumstances, should, we think, be carried out
within the country when the disease has found a
footing on shore.

We cannot too strongly urge the necessity of
excluding from workhouses and general hospitals
any forms of choleraic disease.

The sick poor should be cared for in special and
isolated institutions.

We have based the suggestions which we have
taken the liberty of submitting to your Lordship
upon the supposition that all the agents employed
shall be of an intelligent and upright class; that
they shall be specially instructed to watch atten-
tively, and without exciting their suspicion, the persons placed under observation, and report to the
medical officers every visit made by any one to the
latrines. Without the aid of intelligent and trust-
worthy agents, it would hardly be possible to limit
safely the period of observation to so short a time as
above stated.

While convinced that all personal effects should
be thoroughly disinfected, we do not think it neces-
sary to extend the measure to mails or to ordinary
merchandize.

At this distance we forbear to enter into the
question of the possibility of practically enforcing
the foregoing measures for general passengers in the
narrow seas, though, if applied, we do not doubt of
their advantage in a medical point of view. We
feel confident, however, that they could be readily
carried out in the cases of masses of persons, as in
those of the German emigrants who conveyed the
disease from Rotterdam to Liverpool.

We also abstain from entering into special details
upon measures of restriction and matters of general
hygiene, which we consider are none the less called
for because we hold the disease to be capable of
transmission.

We therefore limit ourselves to repeating generally
that, whatever other important measures are taken,
amongst the most essential should be reckoned, at
all times and in all places, those which recognize the
possible communicability of the disease; the necessity
of complete isolation of all choleraic patients from
healthy individuals; the destruction or disinfection
of all wearing apparel that may have been in any
way contaminated by the sick; the complete disin-
fection, by chemical means, of all discharges derived
from them; the evacuation, if possible, of con-
taminated ships and habitations of all kinds, and
their complete purification.

We beg to observe that, while recognizing the
communicability of cholera, we consider that, with
due precautions as to ventilation, scrupulous clean-
liness, and attention to the disposal of the clothes
and other effects, and of the discharges of the sick,
the patients can be handled without undue risk to
those employed, and that, therefore, nursing in
cholera is less dangerous than in some other con-
tagious diseases.

We are well aware that measures similar in
character to those which we suggest have already
been recommended by Dr. Budd and others. We do
not, therefore, present them as new; but having had
the honour of being appointed by your Lordship to
attend the Cholera Conferences, the main object of
which is to prevent the spread of the disease, and
having been obliged by the nature of our duties here
to direct special attention to all that relates to it, we
hope that we shall not be considered as going beyond
our province if, in this actual crisis, we add our
voices to those who advocate restrictive measures,
and state our conviction that these would be most
effective in their result if employed early with vigour
and completeness. We have, &c.,

(Signed)

W. STUART,
E. GOODEVE,
E. D. DICKSON.

Erratum.

Colonial Secretary's Office,
(Judicial Branch,)
Wellington, 28th August, 1866.

THE following names—

HENRY RODGERS, Waiau, Otago;
GEORGE JOHN CUMMING, Okato, Taranaki; and
THOMAS BONAR NEILSON, Mount Royal, Palm-
erston, Otago;

have been erroneously put on the Commission of the