'Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf. Vol I. Historical. Part II. J G Lorimer. 1915' [‎2536] (1053/1262)

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2536
The Mixed
Commission
for Revision
of the
Turkish Sani
tary Tariff,
General
resolutions
of the
Conference.
frequently been disputed, and contests between the Board and the Turkish
Department of Public Health have been not infrequent. The Board,
from the circumstances of its creation, is indisputably an Ottoman insti
tution, but at the same time it possesses, as an advisory body, a quasi-
international authority. The British Government have always
resisted undue extensions of the power of the Board because of its irrespon
sible character and the preponderance in its councils of the representatives
of non-maritime nations ; and they have also at times had to insist on
the responsibility of the Turkish Government for the sanitary policy of
the Ottoman Empire and to protest against attempts by the Porte to
shelter itself behind resolutions of the Board.
There is also another international body at Constantinople, called the
Mixed Commission for Revision of the Turkish Sanitary Tariff, which
stands in close relations to the Board of Health and consists partly of the
same members ; it apparently exercises a general control over the income
and expenditure of the Board.
The Conference which met at Venice in 1897 was the first, since that
of 1851, to deal with the subject of plague j its functions were to devise
measures for preventing the introduction and spread of the disease, and
to arrange for systems of sanitary supervision with this object in the
lied Sea and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . Great Britain, Turkey and Persia were
among the powers represented by delegates. The Conference took the
conclusions of its predecessors of 1892, 1893 and 1894 as a basis, but, in
view of the longer incubation period of plague as compared with cholera
and of modifications which had recently taken place in scientific opinion,
the regulations adopted by the Conference of 1897 necessarily differed in
some respects from those enacted by the earlier Conferences.
The Convention framed by this Conference was signed on the 19th of
March 1897; among its leading provisions was one by which the Govern
ments of the countries adhering to the Convention were bound to
notify to each other by telegram the occurrence of j^lague within their
territories. Another important result was that land quarantine was pro
hibited for plague, as it had been in 1893 for cholera, power being
however reserved to non-European countries, should they find it difficult
to protect their frontiers, to close them absolutely to passengers and
merchandise. The list of articles declared capable of transmitting
infection was more comprehensive than that which had been adopted in
the case of cholera. For the regulation of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. traffic vessels
were divided as before into the three categories of " infected/"' " suspected "
and " healthy an " infected ^ ship was defined as one with plague on
board, or on which plague had occurred within 12 days before arrival;
a " suspected " ship as one on which plague had been present, but not
within 1*2 days ; a "healthy" ship as one on which, though coming from
an infected port, plague had not manifested itself. Precautions to be
observed in the case of " infected" and " suspected }) ships were laid
down by the Convention, and it was directed that " healthy" ships
should receive free pratique immediately on arrival, whatever the nature
of the bill of health, provided that they must in all cases have completed
a period of 10 full days after the date of departure from the last infected
port.