§ SIR H. HOWORTH (Salford, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can give a reassuring account of the sanitary condition of the Britannia training ship, where a serious epidemic has recently broken out and several lives have been lost?
§ MR. E. ROBERTSONThe sanitary condition of the Britannia is at present considered excellent. Frequent inspections of the ship and cadets have been made, and every precaution adopted to insure as perfect a hygienic condition as possible. The origin of the late epidemic is distinctly traceable to a cadet who had been exposed to infection previous 1274 to joining the Britannia. Three deaths occurred, one in the person of a colonial cadet from Jamaica, who was undoubtedly affected by the late severe weather; another had been the subject of heart disease, and the third succumbed to severe acute bronchitis. The epidemic may now be regarded as practically at an end.
§ SIR H. HOWORTHasked, if it was not the case that the sanatorium arrangements connected with the Britannia were too limited in extent in every way, and that a portion of the difficulty had arisen in consequence of patients having to be removed to a gymnasium where there was no proper accommodation for them.
§ MR. ROBERTSONcould not answer from personal knowledge; he would consult the medical authorities.