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good tobacco is of greater benefit than smoking opium. In plague it is the atomised carbon which is of prophylactic value. An opium pipe cannot have the specific effect in prevention of plague that it undoubtedly possesses in malaria.
"After a person has been attacked by plague an opium pipe under judicious medical supervision will undoubtedly act as a sedative in the acute stage; but here again it could not have the wonderful effect as a curative that it often has in malaria, phthisis, and bad neuralgia.
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During convalescence after plague its use is indicated for those who have smoked opium previously and is here of great benefit.”
In the case of two opium divans, where careful enquiry was made I found that no inmate had been attacked by plague and several customers had made them their residence for some time. Any one who has been into a busy divan in the City of Victoria knows that the amount of smoke generally evolved by the inmates prevents one seeing across the room. Infection by inoculation is of very frequent occurrence, and I cannot see how opium smoking could possibly prevent infection by this channel unless by physical or chemical action outside the body. An opium smoker nay finish his smoke and afterwards go into an adjacent house and be infected with the disease--the pipe he smoked some time before is then of no prophylactic use.
Moreover the mere fact that these houses were opium divans was not the only reason why they escaped as each lessee took very good care in his own interests to keep out any visitors who had any appearance of being sick, and if any one had become ill in the house it is pretty certain that he would have been very soon turned out of it.
Opium smokers who recovered were not allowed to smoke in the Government Hospitals but, from the rapid way that several opium smoking inmates of the Slaughter House Hospital convalesced when allowed to smoke, I should be disposed in future to allow them to have their usual pipe in some outside ward or matshe.l. Several patients were noticed in the native hospitals who smoked through their whole illness, some of their friends attending them to keep the pipe frequently filled, and it must be said that they seemed to give very little trouble, whilst food very rarely crossed their lips.
DRAINAGE STATISTICS.
The following table prepared by Mr. J. R. CROOK, Sanitary Surveyor, shews that in the principal infected areas houses which were drained under the Public Health Ordinance were affected in fewer numbers than those which were not connected with the new drainage scheme.
Taipingshan District.
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May.
June.
Houses redrained under Public Health Ordinance................. 33% affected
Houses not so drained
....... 36% affected
30% affected 36% affected
Western District.
May.
June. July.
Houses redrained under Public Health Ordinance...... 10% 17% 2%
Houses not so drained
13% 26% 31%
These differences are so small that it would be wise not to attach too much importance to them as a proof of the necessity of having efficient drainage.
PRESENT SANITARY REQUIREMENTS.
The following matters require urgent attention :
(1) Vital Statistics.-A reliable record of vital statistics prepared under the immediate supervision of a duly qualified medical practitioner should be at once institute:1. Compulsory notification of death is necessary.
There is no law at present to enforce it.