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town like this, and situated as it is, you can quite understand that people might die of the plague and their bodies be carried away in sampans at night without the cases having been reported to the Registrar General as cases of plague.
Dr. PRESTON. He would have to keep his eye on the general sanitation of the place?
Dr. ATKINSON.--Yes, to see that the Public Health Ordinances were carried out. If there was a Medical Officer of Health in the Medical Department I do not think there would be any necessity for the Sanitary Board. The work would be done by the Public Works Department in conjunction with the Medical Officer.
Dr. PRESTON. How much does the Sanitary Board cost?
A
Dr. ATKINSON.-It is becoming one of the most expensive Departments now.
Mr. THURBURN.-With regard to the Tung Wah, the Government ask to what extent non-Government Hospitals have been visited and inspected in the past, and what improved arrangements, if any, should be made for the frequent and regular inspection of such institutions in the future?
Dr. ATKINSON.-Do you not think that applies to all other Hospitals in the Colony--the Peak, Alice Memorial and Nethersole Hospitals?
Mr. THURBURN.--I think it means only the Tung Wah.
The Colonial Surgeon
Dr. ATKINSON.-It is under Government supervision. supervises it. I presume the question means that occasion might arise in which the Colonial Surgeon, as medical adviser to the Government, might wish to have the power he does not at present possess to inspect these other hospitals. It might come to his knowledge that erysipelas or puerperal or typhoid fever were rampant there and he ought to have the power to visit these hospitals and report on their condition to the Government.
Mr. THURBURN.--I want to get your opinion about the Tung Wah, because Dr. AYRES and Dr. Lowson state that if the work there is to be properly done, it will take up two or three hours a day. The question is whether these five officers, as you recom- mend, including the Health Officer, could carry out this business of the Tung Wah doing it thoroughly or whether it ought to be done at all?
Dr. ATKINSON.-There would be about 60 or 70 inmates in the Tung Wah. There are certain radical changes which out to be made there. It is for the Colonial Surgeon to point out these things to the Government. For instance, there is an arrangement of wooden partitions in the wards under which the dirt collects and you cannot possibly clear it out, these should be removed.
Dr. PRESTON. What work is there in the Tung Wah now?
Dr. ATKINSON.-The Colonial Surgeon has to go there and diagnose the disease of every one brought into the Tung Wah. There would be from eight to ten new cases every day. He has to put down in black and white what every patient is suffering from. It is very difficult to diagnose, for instance, between remittent fever and typhoid, and he would have to keep some cases under observation for several days. But taking the work generally, it need not take him more than an hour a day. It is simply one of the details of the Medical Department which there should be no difficulty in arranging. I think this question, however, refers more to the other hospitals in the Colony, i including the Tung Wah, other than the Governinent Civil Hospital.
There are three others the Peak, the Alice Memorial and the Nethersole. With the Tung Wah, there are four. So far as I am aware non-Government Hospitals have not been visited and inspected in the past, but occasion might arise in which, on the grounds of public health, it would be advisable that the Colonial Surgeon should possess the power, under Ordinance, to inspect such institutions, e.g., if it should come to his knowledge that any disease such as erysipelas, typhoid or, say, puerperal fever were present.