16
Steamship Lines.
Pacific Steam Navigation
Company.
Pacific Steam Navigation
Company.
Cia Sud-Americanade
Vapores.
Peruvian Line.
The National Steamship
Line.
Frequency.
I every 10 days
I every fortnight.
about one each
per week.
Frequently
Ports of call in yellow fever zone.
Guayuquil direct.
Guayaquil via .intermediate Columbian
ports.
Panama to Payta
at intermediate
Antofagasta and
in Peru, thence calling
ports to Callao, Moliendo,
Valparaiso.
Local coasting traffic on the Pacific side of
the Republic of Panama.
By the direct steamers the journey between Panama and Guayaquil occupies
only 31/2 days, and between Panama and Payta 5 days.
Quarantine arrangements.—The regulations of maritime quarantine for the-
ports of Colon and Panama are given in an appendix, and here it is necessary to
note only a few details of interest and importance.
The scheme by which the United States seeks to prevent the introduction
of yellow fever into its ports includes arrangements not only at the local
ports of arrival of ships, but at the distant infected or suspected ports from
which the ships have come. The latter part of the scheme has been rendered
possible by international agreement, and is a most important link in the chain
of defence. In its complete form it necessitates the placing of a United States
medical officer in each port that is suspected to be dangerous. He is attached
to the United States Consulate of the port, and some of his duties are, to
furnish trustworthy information concerning the sanitary and health conditions of
the port and district, to telegraph information of the outbreak and progress of
quarantinable diseases, to examine all passengers and crew of vessels leaving
the port for ports belonging to the United States, to supply health certificates
and certificates of immunity and of vaccination to certain passengers, to inspect
all ships prior to their departure and if necessary to fumigate them before they
leave, to issue in co-operation with the American Consul, Bills of Health to
ships, and generally to endeavour to ensure that no ship or passenger shall
proceed from the port in a condition liable to carry infection to an American
port. The reports of these officers are of great value in deciding whether
quarantine shall be established against a port and what measures shall be taken
with regard to the ships and passengers arriving from it ; and the action and
supervision exercised by those officers sometimes enables trade with infected
ports to be carried on without the delays to shipping that would be necessary
in the ordinary 'course. This is illustrated in the following account of the pro-
cedure adopted in connection with the ship on which I returned to Panama from
Guayaquil, which is a yellow fever and plague-infected port
days journey
from the Canal zone. The vessel in which I travelled trades directly to and fro
between those ports and it complies with the following rules: (1) it carries a
doctor, (2) it is fitted with a Clayton fumigating apparatus, (3) it does not
proceed to the wharves at Guayaquil but anchors in mid-stream about two miles
down the river at a place where there is no risk that infected stegomyia mos-
quitoes will fly on board, (4) no member of the ship's crew is allowed to go on
shore at Guayaquil.
The passengers who intended proceeding from Guayaquil on the ship were
required, before going on board, to visit the medical officer of the United States
Marine Hospital Service who is stationed at Guayaquil. It is his duty to ensure