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Dr. Ho KAI.--Perhaps to receive their daily report, or if they have a difficult case to go round and see it with them.
Dr. CANTLIE. That would throw a good deal of work upon the medical man whose duty it was to take charge of them.
Dr. Ho KAI.-Yes,
Mr. THURBURN.-When they get diplomas have they any actual work at the Alice Memorial Hospital? That is to say after they pass the College of Medicine?
Dr. Ho KAL.-They serve in the Alice Memorial Hospital nearly the whole of the five years, taking appointments as clerks or dressers and so on, and in the Hospital they receive their practical education as well as their theoretical education. The College of Medicine makes use of one of the rooms there as a lecture room and so when students join the College of Medicine they actually join the Alice Memorial Hospital and the Nethersole Hospital, and the whole of the five years, so far as I know, are spent in the Hospital.
join.
Mr. THURBURN.-How old are they when they finish?
Dr. Ho Kar. The youngest would be about thirteen or fourteen years when they
Dr. CANTLIE.-Seventeen, I think.
Dr. Ho KAI.-They are trained there until they are over twenty.
Mr. THURBURN.-They are about twenty-one, young men?
Dr. Ho KAI.—Yes.
Dr. CANTLIE.-That is the same as in England.
Dr. Ho KAI.--Yes, but in Scotland they pass even younger than that. They are not permitted to practice until they are twenty-one, but they may pass all the examina- tions in Scotland before they are twenty-one.
THE PRESIDENT.-Do you think these licentiates would take up the appointments under the Government, if offered to them?
Dr. Ho KAI.—Yes.
THE PRESIDENT.-Do you think they might become assistants at the Government Civil Hospital?
Dr. Ho KAI.-If the medical men would have them.
Dr. CANTLIE.-But U I KAI is there already as an assistant.
Dr. Ho KAI-I do not know that; he is one of the best assistants. I know he is a capital dispenser.
Mr. THURBURN.-Supposing one of these men were put in charge of a Dispensary and left to himself-if there were too many of them to be put under the supervision of a European doctor and they were left alone for a month-do you think he could be trusted not only to diagnose diseases and administer medicines but to look after his work? Don't you think they would become lazy, and probably give returns of diseases without taking the trouble of finding them out?
Dr. Ho KAI.-The majority would be all right, but I daresay one or two of the men out of the number would turn out badly. You see this is a new thing to them.
Mr. MCCONACHIE.-Is it not a fact that the native character becomes demoralised when it is not under restraint ?
Dr. Ho KAI-You mean to say the Chinese in general; yes, that is so.