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Mr. THURBURN.--And if we were able to make the Civil Hospital equally as popular then of course your argument would fall to the ground? Then it would be immaterial whom the Dispensaries were under?
Dr. PRESTON.-Why not have them under the Colonial Surgeon and the College of Medicine?
Dr. JORDAN.-If worked under both, I think the two would clash.
If there were more confidence in the Government Civil Hospital, I think it would be better to keep the Dispensaries under the Government, but at present it would not do so well, because the very fact that the Dispensaries were under the Government would deter very many patients from going there. In the outlying districts the patients know more about the Alice Memorial Hospital and the College of Medicine. Patients come to the Alice Memorial Hospital from everywhere round about. I have known of men walking
twenty to thirty miles to come to the Alice Memorial Hospital.
Mr. THURBURN.-The College puts down $600 a year for one Dispensary alone. Dr. JORDAN.-I think that would be enough.
Mr. MCCONACHIE.—That is $50 a month for drugs alone?
Dr. JORDAN.-Yes; if it went on to large numbers that would not be enough, but as a beginning I think that sum would do.
Meeting held 1st February, 1895.
Present:-Dr. KNOTT, Deputy-Inspector General, R.N.H., Chairman.
Surgeon-Colonel A. F. PRESTON.
Hon. A. McCONACHIE.
Dr. JAMES Cantlie.
Mr. J. THURBURN.
Dr. J. A. Lowson, Acting Superintendent, Government Civil Hospital, called.
THE PRESIDENT.-Will you give the Committee a general idea of the daily routine of duty at the Civil Hospital?
Dr. Lowson. When Dr. ATKINSON and I are here, at nine o'clock in the morning one of us has to go to the Asylum and do the Asylum work which generally takes about an hour on an average. If there are many patients it takes longer. The other one of us goes to the Hospital and commences the rounds. As a rule the Superintendent has an hour and a half of administrative work every morning. After the Hospital rounds are made the out-patients have to be seen and this takes until one or half-past one o'clock. One of us has to see the out-patients; it depends on which of us is finished first with the rounds. After tiffin, operative work has to be done. If an operation requires chloroform both men have to be there; it is very difficult to give an exact idea of how long this work takes. It depends on the class of work, often the whole afternoon is required for three or four operations. When there is no operative work doing, there is, as a rule, enough clinical work to keep both men engaged an hour or an hour and a half, such as special eye cases, ophthalmoscope work, examination of urines, and