312 DR DAVY ON THE QUARANTINE CLASSIFICATION OF SUBSTANCES, 



the public health, or, I believe I may add without exaggeration, the welfare of 

 mankind at large, especially in the Mediterranean countries, and those communi- 

 cating with them, now constituting the larger portion by far of the globe. 



To those who have never been in quarantine, and have not witnessed the 

 manner in which the distinctions involved in the classification, the subject of this 

 paper, are made to operate, and how they tend to vitiate other parts of the sana- 

 tory system, a few examples, it has occurred to me, may perhaps be acceptable 

 by way of illustration. The inconsistencies between the actual practices and those 

 which seem to be warranted by rational views are so great, that the unexpe- 

 rienced in them, without giving attention to particular instances, can form but a 

 faint idea of them, when viewed as it were abstractedly. 



The few notices of such instances that I shall bring forward I shall give very 

 briefly, selecting such as I can vouch for being correct, having come under my own 

 observation. 



1 . A vessel arrives at Malta from a port in quarantine with that island, and 

 is brought to an anchor in the quarantine harbour for the purpose of all commu- 

 nication with the shore being prevented for a limited time. Boats, however, im- 

 mediately and during the time of probation, are allowed to come alongside, and 

 bring fruit and certain provisions from the town. If brought in baskets, as they 

 commonly are, the baskets as soon as emptied are returned, handed by those on 

 board in quarantine to those in the boat in pratique, without compromising them, 

 on account of the so-called non-susceptible material, wood, of which the baskets 

 are made. 



2. A trabaccalo (a large boat in use in the Adriatic) arrives at Corfu from 

 Ancona, a town in pratique with the Ionian Islands, after having been under the 

 necessity, from stress of weather, of putting into various ports of the mainland, 

 some of them in Turkey in quarantine, in each of which the passenger and small 

 crew landed, and got such articles of provisions as belong to the non-susceptible 

 class, such as bread, wine in barrels, vegetables, &c., the passenger having taken 

 care that contact with any native or susceptible article was avoided. He makes 

 a declaration to this effect at the Corfu Sanitk Office, and is immediately granted 

 pratique, and permission to land. 



3. In Constantinople, at the Sanita Office, the masters of all vessels, after 

 arrival, are required to present themselves. They appear before a small window, 

 with a projecting ledge of wood. In the same hour, tAventy masters from different 

 ports, some in quarantine, some not, may come in succession, and one after an- 

 other rest their arms or place their hands on the ledge, those who are in pratique 

 riot thereby subjecting themselves to quarantine, because the ledge belongs to the 

 class of non-susceptible substances. 



4. In the Austrian lazaretto, near Orsova on the Danube, it is the common 



