Report on the Sanatory Station for the Year 1862

Author Chief Medical Officer of Victoria

Date1862

Object number00018160

NameParliamentary paper

MediumInk on paper

DimensionsOverall: 343 mm, 0.017 kg

ClassificationsEphemera

Credit LineANMM Collection

Collections

For sickness and health - medicine in the collection

Terms

DescriptionA report on the Sanatory Station in Victoria by the Chief Medical Officer for the year 1862. The report is produced by the Resident Surgeon of the quarantine station at Point Nepean on Port Phillip Bay, Dr J Callan. In the report Dr Callan details the arrival of the vessels WILHELMINE from "Foo Choo" (Fuzhou) and PHOENIX and DONALD MCKAY, both from Liverpool. HistoryThe quarantine station for entry to Port Phillip near the city of Melbourne was firs established in 1852/ 1853. As immigration grew to the city an "attempt is being made to step in advance of the antiquated system by which unclean people were merely to be avoided, not to be cured." Where previously cleared land was suffice for ill passengers to be disembarked and wait out their illness, now buildings and facilities were being constructed that could process and address sickness in a more effective and humane way. By 1862 when this report by Dr Callan was produced, the quarantine station at Point Nepean consisted of brick buildings housing three hospitals, staff quarters, a cookhouse, a store house and accommodation for 500. The report also gives an interesting insight into the costs that were to be covered by the shipping agents responsible for the vessels and the often vulnerable situation of the newly arrived passengers. "The PHOENIX immigrants were in quarantine in midwinter, and the weather was very stormy and wet. Many of them were ill provided with clothing, and some necessary articles had to be supplied to them. The value of these things amounted to between six and seven pounds, and as the recipients had no money to pay for them the amount was charged to the ship with the other quarantine expenses. Steerage passengers, especially single men, have usually a scanty amount of clothing, and this was particularly the case with several of the patients, who, when brought a-shore had no articles of wearing apparel except what they had on. Several of these patients were in a very helpless state, and although every precaution was taken by using folded blankets, &c., an average of two beds per diem, for three weeks, was rendered unfit for further use, and had to be destroyed. The value of those beds was, however, also charged to the ship, and to prevent a recurrence of such loss a supply of India-rubber sheeting has been applied for. Typhus fever was communicated to one of the male attendants attached to the station by the patients from the DONALD MCKAY, but he recovered after a severe and protracted attack."SignificanceThis report by Dr Callan is an insight into the facilities and processes by which contaminated ships and passengers were subjected to on arrival to Port Phillip. While facilities had improved enormously since the previous decade, conditions were still fairly rudimentary.