A forgotten task: maritime health interpreters

Abstract

The 1855 Health Act introduced maritime health interpreters in Spanish ports, whose task was to overcome the language barriers between the crews of foreign ships and the port health authorities. After noting the scant attention that has been paid to them in the specialized literature, this article aims to fill the gap with the first monographic study on maritime health interpreters. In accordance with this objective, the regulation to which they were subject in the Act itself and in the successive regulations of Maritime (or foreign) Health is described, the interpreters who worked in the port of Barcelona are identified and archival and newspaper data are used to analyse the specific activity of the most important of them, Alfredo Vacossin Boira, who was active between 1894 and 1928.