will be prepared again to require at her seaports the vaccinal protection of all incoming passengers of whatever class, just so soon as New York, Boston, and Portland will join her in conformity of enactment and enforcement in this important matter. In addition to the quarantine station in the St. Lawrence, the other organized quarantine ports of the Dominion are Halifax and Pictou and Hawkesbury, and Sydney, Cape Breton in the Province of Nova Scotia, St. John and Miramichi in the Province of New Brunswick, Charlottetown in the Province of Prince Edward Island, and Victoria in the Province of British Columbia. There is also an inspecting quarantine officer at Rimouski, in the St. Lawrence, where the incoming European mails, and occasionally a few passengers, are landed to be brought on by train. The Pacific coast quarantine is assuming a new importance, not only for the Dominion of Canada, but for the whole continent, since the opening of a transcontinental railway line by the Canadian Pacific, and the establishing and growing importance of direct steam communication between China and Japan, and the terminus in British Columbia of the Canadian Pacific Railway. To all these organized quarantine ports the rules and regulations are made so far as possible to apply. They are for the most part supplied with wharves, boats, hospitals, buildings, and other requirements necessary for the reception of passengers, their separation in categories, the attendance upon the sick, and the keeping of the suspected under quarantine of observation. It would, of course, be quite impossible to furnish every seaport of the Dominion with an establishment so fitted; but those seaports not provided with a regular quarantine are not, nevertheless, left unprotected. The collector of customs of each port in Canada is made ex officio a quarantine officer, empowered to detain vessels at safe distance from the shore, to summon medical help and advice, to take, under direction of the Federal government, such measures as may become necessary, should a vessel infected with disease, or coming from an infected port, make her appearance. It is also within that officer's power to order such vessel to the nearest quarantine, if such action be deemed to be requisite. No fees or charges of any kind are payable in Canada by vessels at, or for, quarantine. The quarantine officials are all salaried officers, and the taking of any fee or emolument from vessels or persons in quarantine is strictly forbidden by law. The maintenance of any passengers who may be detained under quarantine of observation falls, of course, upon the vessel as a part of the voyage. But all the expenses of the quarantine establishments, of the medical inspection and the disinfection of vessels, and of the care, maintenance, and treatment of the sick in quarantine, are defrayed by the Federal government. The Canadian system is, then, one of medical inspection; of the vaccinal protection of steerage passengers in every case, and of all on board when small-pox has occurred; of segregation of the sick from the well; of the prompt disinfection of the ship's isolated hospital; in more serious cases, of further removal of the vessel out of the track of commerce and the necessary disinfection, by the germicide agents most to be depended upon for prompt and certain action; of the vessel and of all infected material;" and in all cases the release of the vessel, passengers, crew, and cargo, so soon as they have been rendered safe and free from the danger of communicating disease. This is very different from the old "time" quarantine-the routine of detention. It is a system of maritime sanitation, such as has been well described as a "common-sense" quarantine, which aims to prevent the introduction and extension of infection not by merely arresting it at a given point, and there leaving sick and well at its mercy, until, the susceptible material having become exhausted, no more cases of the given disease occur; but by removing the susceptible at once from its influence, and then destroying it and the conditions necessary for its existence by scientific methods of purification and disinfection. The quarantine station of Grosse Isle protects and safeguards from the introduction of infectious disease the water-way of the River St. Lawrence. By that great entrance-gate a large immigration arrives each year for distribution not only throughout Canada, but also to your northern and north-western states and territories. Recognizing this, the states of Illinois and Minnesota have recently sent the executive officers of their state boards of health to inspect that station; to see how and to what extent it is adapted and fitted to protect Canada, and, in protecting Canada, those great states which lie near to her, and to which, in part, this stream of westward immigration and travel flows. The station consists of an island in the St. Lawrence about thirtyone miles below Quebec. It was selected for quarantine purposes at the time of the first advent of cholera to this continent, in 1832. It lies in the stream about four miles and a half from the south shore of the river, about six miles from the north shore, and two miles or more from the fairway or channel along which incoming and outgoing vessels pass. No one is allowed to reside on the island except the employés and their families. A written permit from the officer in charge is required before any one can either land upon the island, depart from it, or, when infectious disease is present, pass from one of its divisions to another. Its position and capabilities of isolation are, therefore, exceptionally good, and are, indeed, all that can be desired. The island is a well wooded one, between two and three miles long. It is divided into sick, central, and healthy divisions. In the sick division, at the eastern extremity of the island, are the hospitals, and quarters of the hospital staff. There is a two-story brick hospital, with one hundred beds, including some in private wards for cabin passengers, ship's officers, etc., and a detached one-story wooden shed, with four separate wards and about seventy beds, for cholera or smallpox patients. There are also ample facilities provided for the washing, disinfection, and fumigation of bedding, clothing, etc. In the central division are the residences of the inspecting officers and of the crew of the inspecting steamer. This division is kept so far as possible free from all infection, as from it the inspecting staff go out to meet incoming vessels. In this division, also, the churches and chaplains' residences are placed. In the healthy division, at the western extremity of the island, are the houses of detention for suspected passengers from infected vessels. These detention houses are eight in number, grouped in twos and threes, and furnish in all accommodation for about two thousand persons. In this division, also, there is a large wash-house with twenty-four furnaces and boilers; a bakery; and an oven for hot-air disinfection; a fumigating room; police barracks, etc. This division is separated by more than a mile of generally wooded land from the sick division and the hospitals. There is telephonic communication between the different divisions of the station, and telegraphic communication with the main land. Incoming vessels requiring inspection are met in the offing, and inspected immediately upon their arrival, whether by day or by night. The position. of the station is marked at night to vessels arriving, and the working of the night service is facilitated by the presence of an illuminated gas-buoy about two miles out from and opposite to the station. For the inspection service two small steamers are maintained. The larger of the two, the "Challenger," being the regular inspecting steamer, on duty with steam up night and day, always in readiness to meet incoming vessels in the offing. She is provided with a hospital cabin, with beds, etc., for the landing of the sick, and with disinfecting appliances, consisting of a force-pump and drench for the mercuric chloride solution, and fire-hose, etc., for superheated steam. When infectious disease is found to have occurred on any incoming vessel, and to have been satisfactorily isolated, the sick, with the attendants and all the contents of the ship's hospital, are at once transferred to the quarantine steamer. The emptied hospital of the ship is then drenched with mercuric chloride solution 1 to 700, and then treated with superheated steam, a self-registering thermometer being hung up in it, and the attainment and maintenance for a few minutes of a temperature of 230° F. being considered sufficient. The vessel meanwhile proceeds up the river with the quarantine steamer alongside, so that the delay is reduced to the minimum. The other little steamer, the "Hygeia," is used as a supply-boat and mail-boat, as a means of taking convalescents up to Quebec when discharged from quarantine, and as a reserve inspecting steamer in case she is so required. She is also used for the longer process of disinfection, where, from the non-isolation or general diffusion of disease, the whole of a vessel requires purification. To this end she has on board, in addition to the same appliances as the "Challenger," the furnaces, exhaustfan, tubing, etc., for fumigating with the sulphur dioxide blast, as introduced by Dr. Joseph Holt, late president of the State Board of Health of Louisiana, at the New Orleans quarantine. When the sea is running high, however, much practical difficulty is experienced in the working of this process from the quarantine steamer, owing to her pitching and rolling alongside of the larger vessel. The expediency of extending the quarantine wharf into deep water, so as to allow infected steamships to come to it for the immediate landing of passengers, etc., and the disinfection of the emptied vessel, is now under the consideration of the government. If this extension be effected, the sulphur blast will be transferred to the wharf, which will also be fitted up with all other modern appliances for prompt and effective disinfection, with rooms for the temporary reception of patients landed at night, etc. A sum of money has already been granted by parliament for appliances for the disinfection of passengers' clothing and effects by superheated steam, either in a Troy laundry superheating chamber, or such other apparatus as may be decided upon as best calculated to secure its germicidal action. And such appliances will be erected early next spring. So The general routine of inspection, with the questions to be answered under oath by the captain and surgeon of each vessel, and the vaccinal protection of immigrants, are those I have already referred to. No vessel from outside of British North America can enter at the custom-house at Quebec or Montreal without producing a quarantine clearance. that the people of Canada and of this great Northwest have the assurance that no vessel from abroad can send immigrants among them from that route without satisfactory evidence of their harmlessness having first been given to a medical officer directly responsible to the government. From this account of the general system and its practical working at one of the stations, it will be seen that the Dominion of Canada is keenly alive to the importance of maritime quarantine; and that she is certainly not behindhand, to say the least, in her efforts to safeguard the general health and to protect herself and her neighbors from the inroads. of disease. XV. HISTORY OF QUARANTINE IN THE STATE OF TEXAS BY ROBERT RUTHERFORD, M. D., STATE HEALTH Officer. As a premise to this matter, my desire is to call the attention of the people at large to the facts existing prior to those years. In doing this, I desire that the fact may be pertinently shown that quarantine has been the only prophylaxis against infectious diseases that we have enjoyed. In support of this fact I will call over the non-quarantine years, and show the number of years of prevalent fever in comparison with those that have occurred since. In 1837 fever was imported into Texas; 1838 it prevailed; 1839 it was fearful; 1840, not noticeable; 1841, the same; in 1842, the same; 1843 it increased; 1844 it was again epidemic; 1845 it was bad; 1846, not prevalent; 1847 it reappeared; 1848 there was fever; 1849, fever; 1850, doubtful conditions; 1851, doubtful; 1852, none; 1853, a plague; 1854, bad. It was in this year that the first quarantine was established in Texas, which was done by the little town of Matagorda, a quarantine boat being stationed at Dog Island channel in Matagorda bay, protecting the place from communication with Port Lavaca, Indianola, and Galveston, where the fever was prevailing. In 1855 the fever was again bad; 1856, none; 1857, again prevalent; in 1858 and 1859, the same; in 1860, 1861, 1862, and 1863, no fever; in 1864 a blockade runner brought the fever to Galveston, and it reached Houston; in 1865, no fever, and 1866, no fever; 1867 a terrible scourge visited Texas, and the last that she has had of great consequence. Its first appearance was at Indianola. During the latter part of July a schooner came into that port from Vera Cruz; the woollen blankets on board of her were spread to dry, and in two days the fever made its appearance. In August it reached Galveston; and about September 3, Major Johnson died at the Hutchins House in Houston, his being the first case in that place. The fever extended this season to every town and hamlet where there was quick transportation, and only ceased in January, 1868. Dr. R. K. Smith, of Galveston, was health officer at that place this year, but was removed by General Griffin then in command, and an army officer, Dr. Brown, appointed, who served during the military rule. In 1868 fever did not prevail; 1869 there was little in Galveston; and in 1870, no fever. That season the local board of health at Galveston placed a quarantine against New Orleans, the first quarantine instituted since |