Both authorities have medical departments to assist them in carrying out their duties, but for the sailor there is no analogous competent corps of medical men, apart from the port sanitary authorities, whose work is important in maintaining the best possible level of health, since they cannot make regular inspections under working conditions at sea.
For many years past, there has been a striking consensus of experts on the shortcomings of living accommodation on many sea-going vessels—though it must be remembered that ihe port sanitary authorities. who make these comparisons, visit British ships in the worst conditions. when ihe crew has left at the voyage's end and quarters are dirty and deserted As long ago as 1902, Dr. Collingridge. Medical Officer of Health of the Por and later of the City of London, wrote that the sanitary state of British ships was 50 years behind that of the rest of the country. Eight years later, Dr. H. Jones, late Medical Officer of Health of Newport, declared that ment of sea-going accommodation on health grounds. Their use in this way is controversial, but they do at least suggest that seafaring is a dangerous trade in more ways than are generally realized. It is hard to avoid the conclusion, in fact, that the conditions under which some crews live may be a predisposing influence to higher disease and mortality rates. The general improvement of these conditions has been delayed in spite of efforts on the part of both owners and men. But the new instructions will generalis the best current practice,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.