A bill of health is a document from officials of a port of departure indicating to the officials of the port of arrival whether it is likely that a ship is carrying a contagious disease, either literally on-board as fomites or via its crewmen or passengers.
As defined in a consul's handbook from 1879:
A bill of health is a document issued by the consul or the public authorities of the port which a ship sails from, descriptive of the health of the port at the time of the vessel's clearance. A clean bill of health certifies that at the date of its issue no infectious disease was known to exist either in the port or its neighbourhood. A suspected or touched bill of health reports that rumours were in circulation that an infectious disease had appeared but that the rumour had not been confirmed by any known cases. A foul bill of health or the absence of a clean bill of health implies that the place the vessel cleared from was infected with a contagious disease. The two latter cases would render the vessel liable to quarantine. [1]
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Public Health Act of 1879 or National Board of Health Act, 1879 was a United States federal statute authorizing the creation of the National Board of Health. The Act of Congress was an appeal for a national public health organization and national quarantine system for purposes of contagious or infectious diseases discovered in nineteenth century America. The United States public law sanctioned the newly formed National Health Board and Academy of Sciences to provide reports concerning public health information with regards to the Perpetual Union or States for the purposes of;
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