Page 142 - Historical Summaries (Persian Gulf) 1907-1953

14
and 1903; and in each of tiio Conventions drawn
up at.these Conferences clauses were ineorpo-
rated embodying measures intended to secure
this end.”
Stated briefly, the Regulations framed under
the Paris Convention of 1891?, which had special
rcfcronce to cholera, have in the main been a
dead letter. The Regulations contemplated the
establishment of a number of sanitary stations,
under tho control of the Turkish authorities,
in the Persian Gulf, and the enforcement of
quarantine against arrivals. Tho British Govern­
ment, in adhering to tho Convention, refused to
accept the Appondix containing tho Persian Gulf
Regulations, on the grounds (1) that the posts
wero unnecessary; (2) that Turkey and Persia
wero too far off to maintain effective control ;
and (3) that the great oxpense entailed in
establishing the ports would fall chiefly on
British shipping, which formed 98 per cent, of
the shipping in the Gulf. The scheme was not
carried out.
When plague appeared in India in 1896 the
Constantinople Board of Health* discussed at
great length and on repeated occasions the
question of new ports and the rtSgimo to be
applied in the Gulf ports. It was ultimately
decided to establish a permanent port at Fao,
and to repulse plague-infected ships from
Uussorah. A Commission was sont to Fao to
select a site, but nothing further was done, and
Fao remaiued a sanitary office with no lazaret
and no sanitary apparatus.
In tho Venice Sanitary Convention of 1897 pro­
vision was made simply for a sanitary station near
Bussorah and another at or in the neighbour­
hood of the Island of Ormuz or of Kishrn, near
the. entrance of the Gulf, these stations to he
under the control of the Constantinople Board
of Health. The establishment of the Ormuz

• Tbia ia a body of international composition, Great Britain
being represented on it by Dr. F. G. Clemow, Physician to
His Majesty's Embassy at Constantinople. Dr. Dickson,
Dr. Clernow’s predecessor, Physician to tho British Embassy,
thus describod the Board in January 1898: “Notwithstanding
its nominal international character, the Board is in reality a
Turkish Department, guided by tho resl or pretended will of
the Sultan, and administered by its Turkish members;” and
the British Government has always consistently maintained
the view that the Board “ is not independent of the Turkish
Government, .... and that the Porte is respousihle for nil
measures adopted on its advice."