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Mr. MCCONACHIE.--Then you have no control over him at all. There is no check?
Mr. CROW.--None at all. I could only check by the amounts shown in the returns. It would be no check.
Dr. CANTLIE. You have had to do with the training of these licentiates of the College of Medicine whom it is proposed to put in charge of these dispensaries?
Mr. CROW.--Yes, I have had three Chinamen. Only one of them studied medicine. He is partly under me and partly under the Superintendent in the Civil Hospital. U I KAI is a dispenser. CHO KAM SUNG is another. He is the junior; he has been at the work about six years. They are both very good dispensers. I mean in regard to prescriptions of any physician whose handwriting is familiar to them; they could not serve as general dispensers in dealing with writing with which they are not familiar. They are not up to the standard of apothecaries' assistants in England. Their experience is limited to the Department in which they serve. To the Civil Hospital.
Dr. CANTLIE.--They are good enough where they are? You could not trust them
in Yaumati ?
Mr. CROW.-They could dispense prescriptions from the same doctors with whom they have been in the habit of dealing, but they could not take up your prescriptions.
Mr. THURBURN.It is one of the things they would have to do if put in charge of these dispensaries-to prescribe themselves, not merely to make up prescriptions.
Mr. CROW.--I do not think they could do that so well. UI KAI has been trained in a particular way and his method of prescribing would be on the lines of the doctors he has studied under. He could remember the remedies for common ailments, such as fever, diarrhoea, and such like. Take them out of the rut and they are lost.
Mr. THURBURN.-Take any of the young men from the College of Medicine who have been getting their education there entirely, do you think any of them, judging from what you know of the Chinese character or anything else, would be fit to put into these dispensaries and to find out what are the ailments of these people who would come to them, and to give prescriptions and make up the prescriptions themselves?
Mr. CROW. That is more a medical question. With regard to dispensing any prescription they have decided to give they could make it up right enough; but the diagnosing of disease is a different thing, and I cannot speak about that. Since he joined my Department, U I KAI has been receiving substantial pay, but I rather object to these men appointed to do pharmacy work going outside to other work. I understand U I KAI has been appointed an assistant to the doctors in the Civil Hospital. He does not prescribe for the patients in the Hospital. He goes to the Tung Wah Hospital about twelve o'clock every day to take temperature and examine urines and is ready to receive the doctors when they pay their daily visit. He does not do any prescribing in the Civil Hospital.
Dr. CANTLIE. Do you think the young men from the College of Medicine could dispense medicines ?
Mr. CROW.-With regard to ordinary cases of out-patients in our Department I should say the majority of the cases are merely coughs and colds, and fevers and diarrhoea, and eye complaints, and the dispensing, in the event of the dispensaries being started, would, for all practical purposes, be done at headquarters, because the mixtures would be prepared according to the Hospital pharmacopies. There would be a certain amount of stock medicines, and when the stock ran down the men in charge would requisition for fresh supplies. I would give them only small quantities of ammonia and the bromides and such like.
Mr. THURBURN.--There would be no means of checking the sale of bromides ?
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