155
No. 15.
MY LORD,
·Despatches respecting the question of Quarantine.
Presented to the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor.
(1.)
Governor Sir G. F. Bowen, G.C.M.G. to the Secretary of State.
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
HONGKONG, 19th December, 1884.
With reference to my despatch of the 9th August ultimo, and to previous correspondence respecting the question of quarantine, I have the honour to report that, Her Majesty's Minister at Peking (Sir HARRY PARKES), in a despatch dated on the 5th instant, has written to me as follows:-
"I should take this opportunity of stating to your Excellency that the instruc- tions I received last year from the Foreign Office on the subject of quarantine, and which I have been directed to communicate to the Chinese Government, show that Her Majesty's Government are not in favour of the adoption of that measure. I take from these instructions the following passage:-
"Much as scientific men may have differed upon the 'Contagion' of Cholera, there is a complete agreement among all who have a practical acquaintance with the subject either in India, or in the United Kingdom, that the generally received theory and practice of quarantine is not only useless, but also hurtful.”
"The custom of imprisoning the healthy with the sick is calculated, for moral and physical reasons which are easily understood, to increase the number of the persons attacked, to intensify the virulence of the disease, and to convert the prison into a nidus of infection; while the unfounded: belief by the security given by quarantine discourages the adoption of those sanitary measures. which alone are proved to check the spread of the epidemic."
"If the above reasoning be applicable to epidemic cholera, it would appear to have greater force in regard to any endemic form of the disease, such as that which occasionally appears in China during the summer months.”
2. Personally, I am disposed to agree with the spirit of the instructions from the Foreign Office quoted above. But, it will be remembered that very conflicting opinions have been held, and very different courses of action have been followed, respecting quarantine, by various Colonial Governments and Communities. I would request your Lordship to inform me, for my future guidance, if you desire that the principle laid down by the Foreign Office should be followed, in questions relating to Quarantine, by the Government of Hongkong.
I have, &c.,
(Signed),
G. F. BOWEN.
The Right Honourable
THE EARL OF DERBY, K.G.,
&c.,
$e.