Evidence p. 28-15.
[ xxiv ]
"I do not believe a single medical man could be found to uphold its "existence as a hospital, one of the curiosities of Hongkong to medical " visitors having always been the Tung Wa Hospital. The native Chi- 'nese hospitals I have seen in other places are generally far superior to "the one which is now permitted to remain in the middle of a densely "populated part of Hongkong. Matters have improved lately to a great "extent, but still they are bad enough................It is difficult to speak "calmly on this subject, and to the authorities at home it must seem "incredible that the state of affairs is such as I have far-from-fully de- "scribed. If the Government are to recognise a hospital where Chinese quackery is to have full play as regards treatment, then it is all the "more essential that responsible men should be appointed to supervise "it with full power to prevent what is closely allied to malpraxis. I have "had a good deal to do with the Chinaman when in Hospital, and can "state that when once he has had a slight experience of Western medicine "he is generally, if not always, desirous of remaining under civilized The proposal to place some of the students of "the Chinese School of Medicine in the Tung Wa to improve the prepara- "tion of the mortality statistics is a bad one, and would not im- probably lead to a sense of false security. Where it is difficult for an experienced European doctor to make a correct diagnosis it would be "scarcely fair to ask a semi-educated Chinaman to do so; and the result "would be that causes of death would be given, but possibly not the right causes; and the new state of affairs would be worse than the old. Conducted as it is at present under the patronage and protection of the local Government, a certain amount of countenance is, or at any rate appears to be, lent to what I can only describe as medical "and surgical atrocities."
63
"C
CC
แ
treatment......
23. In his evidence on 23rd April, 1896, Dr. Lowson states :-
(4
Apart from absolute sanitation I consider the place was a danger "to the public health.
....From a purely professional point of view "-medical and surgical-and also from a sanitary point of view, I con- "sider the Tung Wa in 1894 was very bad.
..It was insanitary
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on account of overcrowding, filth, absolute want of all cleaning processes, "and one might include the danger of spreading disease from patient to
patient from the filthy condition of the patients in the place.... "Chinese hospitals elsewhere that I have seen were very much better "than the Tung Wa Hospital. From a medical and surgical point "of view the treatment of the patients was very bad indeed, judged "from a Western point of view...... Taking medical considera- "tion into account, I do not think it is in a fair sanitary condition. "There are wards where the patients are suffering from blood poisoning 46 of every description where they are a distinct danger to everybody in "the Hospital suffering from open wounds.
.They constitute
44
a danger through contaminating the air and spreading infection. ........I have seen half a dozen patients there with healthy wounds "who have contracted blood poisoning in the wards. I have seen a man "who was suffering from septicemia take off his plaster and give it to
a man in the next bed to him and that man has died. "The introduction to the Tung Wa Hospital of a Chinese versed in "Western medicine would be a grand scheme if you have a European at "the head who is going to give orders, but unless you have a European "there I do not think there is a Chinaman who could hold his own against "the others.
.The supervision of the Colonial Surgeon would