883.12/39
The Secretary of the Treasury (Mellon) to the Secretary of State
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated June 27, 1928,29 (File, NE 883.12/38), transmitting therewith a copy of a telegram from the American Legation in Egypt29a informing me that the request of this Government to be represented on the International Quarantine Board at Alexandria, Egypt had been approved by the Egyptian Government, and requesting that you be advised of any suggestions which the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service may desire to make with reference to the appointment of a representative of the United States on that Board.
It is noted that under Article 2 of the Khedivial Decree dated June 19, 1893 the delegates on the International Quarantine Board must either hold regular diplomas as Doctors of Medicine granted by a European faculty of medicine or a faculty of medicine in the represented state, or must be consular officers of career of the represented state.
[Page 779]The Surgeon General of the Public Health Service informs me that he has given this matter a great deal of thought and attention during the past four years, and suggests that, in view of the quarantine conditions at present existing in that area, the representative of the United States on the International Quarantine Board at Alexandria, Egypt, be, for the time being, the ranking consular officer of career on the Egyptian station, and should the quarantine conditions in that area undergo such a change in the future as to warrant it, that an officer of the Public Health Service experienced in quarantine matters be then detailed as the representative of the United States on the International Quarantine Board at Alexandria, Egypt.
Should a consular officer of career be appointed accordingly for the present as a representative of the United States on the International Quarantine Board at Alexandria, Egypt, the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service further suggests that the technical advice of an officer of the Public Health Service experienced in quarantine matters, and now stationed in Naples, Italy, could readily be made available upon your request to appropriately advise the representative of the United States on that Board.
Respectfully,