HONGKONG.
413
No. 25
97
$
No. TIG
THE COLONIAL SURGEON'S REPORT FOR 1896.
Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor.
GOVERNMENT CIVIL HOSPITAL,
HONGKONG, 28th April, 1897.
SIR, I bave the honour to forward the Annual Report of the Medical Department for the year 1896, the report of Dr. ATKINSON, the Superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital, to which are attached a report by him on the prevalence of Plague during the years 1895 and 1896 also a report of the outbreak of Cholera on board the S.S. Cheang Hock Kin; these reports show the arduous nature of the work done by him, and for nearly the whole of the first six months of the year he was doing the work of the Colonial Surgeon in addition to his own duties. A valuable report is sent in by Mr. BROWNE, the Assistant Government Analyst. Reports have already been sent in from Staff-Surgeon WILM of the Imperial German Navy who assisted Dr. ATKINSON at the Kennedy Town Hospital during the Plague epidemic, and from Dr. CLARKE who holds the new appointment of Health Officer and Superintendent to the Sanitary Board, which serves to show how necessary this long-needed appointinent was. All these reports also show how much under-manned the Medical Staff of the Colony has long been and is now, and for the last three years has been compelled to depend on the assistance of outsiders all the time. My annual reports for the previous twenty years show how very frequently this has been necessary. I am happy to think that in the near future there is a prospect of this state of things being remedied and that any successor will not be compelled to go through the terrible anxiety and arduous work that I have experienced in over twenty-three years of my service in this Colony.
POLICE.
This year has been the worst as regards admissions to Hospital of any of the previous six years; the greatest excess has been among the Indian portion of the Force. There is a slight increase among the Chinese portion and it has been the healthiest apparently of the last ten years for the European portion. But admissions to Hospital from this portion of the Force do not show the ill-health among the men as I have remarked in previous reports, many of the married men being attended in their own quarters. In only two of the last ten years has the number of deaths been exceeded. The follow- ing tables show the admissions and deaths:
Admission to Hospital, 1887,
Europeans.
Indians.
Chinese.
.139
293
187
Do.,
1888,
.147
279
231
Do.,
1889,
..166
230
194
Do.,
1890,
149
254
179
Do.,
1891,
169
285
118
Do.,
1892,
..152
224
120
Do.,
1893,
..134
255
133
Do.,
· 1894,
........127
244
134
Do.,
Do.,
1895, 1896,
96
254
116
94
370
124
There have been fourteen deaths among the members of the Force during the year: one European died in Hospital, one Indian and five Chinese died in Hospital. Two Indians committed suicide. One Chinese died of Plague on one of the segregation boats, one was drowned, two died while on leave in China, one died in his family house.
The total admissions to Hospital and deaths in the Force for the last ten years are given in the following table:-
1887,
1888,
A
1889,
1890,
1891,
1892,
1893,
1894,
1895,
1896,
Admissions. ....619
Deaths.
9
...657
15
.590
14.
***.582
7
570
7
..496
7
.522
6
..505
...466
.588
14
200+
15
8