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CHUNG, with permission to attend the classes and go through the regular curriculum of the College of Medicine for Chinese. This appointment I regarded as satisfactory evidence of a willingness on their part to fall in with the new order of things, since it was perfectly voluntary.
Just at the close of the year the Directors decided to appoint a Chinaman of somewhat better standing than that of the head coolies to act as Steward of the Hospital, to be at the head of the working staff of the institution, and to be responsible for the sanitary maintenance of the buildings, for the cleanliness of the patients and of their clothing and bedding, and for the proper carrying out of the conservancy system. Such an officer is now on a term of probation, and will, I think, prove suitable.
Dr. CHUNG, the Steward, and a head coolie accompany me round the hospital at my morning and afternoon inspections daily, and I am thus able to point out anything not in order at the time and on the spot to the party responsible for it.
An additional barber has been appointed at my suggestion to allow more careful attention to the shaving of the patients, and an additional night-soil coolie to secure a more efficient and continuous attention to the removal of discharges from the wards.
Otherwise the staff of employees is as it has been in previous years.
Here I may remark that I have been permitted to address directly all employees of the Hospital on the subject of their work, and my orders and those of Dr. CHUNG have been obeyed without question.
CLOTHING AND BEDDING.
I have arranged that all clothing of patients shall be changed twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, that all covers of cotton quilts shall be changed every Saturday, and that either clothing or bedding soiled by discharges shall be removed from the wards without delay. I secure the regular carrying out of these regulations by having the clean clothing and quilt cover laid out on each bed for my personal inspection at my morning visit each Wednesday and Saturday, and having the order to change clothing issued to the patients in each ward by the head coolie accompanying me before 1 leave the ward. In the first months of the year I had a considerable amount of trouble in getting this systematically done, but now it is established as a matter of routine.
The recommendation of the Commission that the cotton quilts in use for bedding should be replaced by blankets has not been carried into effect. After bringing pressure to bear on the Directors on this subject in other ways, I had a formal meeting with them in March for a full discussion of it. At this meeting a majority of them, including the Chairman and the two Vice-Chairmen, were present, and I found them perfectly unanimous in their opposition to the proposal. They urged that the Chinese, rich and poor alike, are so accustomed to this form of bedding that it would materially take away from the comfort of the patients to introduce any other. They professed their willingness to have the covers of the quilts changed regularly, and the quilts themselves replaced as often as might be necessary, and begged that the alteration should not be insisted upon. In these circumstances 1 desisted from the attempt to enforce the improvement recommended, and gave my attention to the question whether a satisfactory degree of cleanliness can be maintained with the use of the quilts, and have come to the conclusion that while the change to blankets would certainly be an improvement it is not absolutely essential, and may well be allowed to stand over until such time as it may be possible to gradually introduce the use of blankets.
A few days after the meeting just referred to, I caused all the cotton quilts to be uncovered for my inspection, and removed thirty of the worst of them from use. A little later I made a more drastic examination of thein, and with the consent of the police made a bonfire of more than one hundred of them on the Tai Ping Shan resumed area. A large number of others, not so completely spoiled as to require destruction by fire, were disinfected by heat at the public disinfector, and then broken up to be made anew, after the outer layer of wool had been picked off to be destroyed, and the remainder re-carded and mixed with a proportion of new cotton-wool.
New quilts having been purchased to replace those destroyed, and the stock of bedding having thus been placed on a satisfactory footing, I have made a weekly inspection since that time of those in use, all quilts being uncovered in preparation for the weekly change of covers before the time of my morning visit on Saturdays.
The quilted clothing supplied to the patients in the cold season is, of course, in the same category as the quilted bedding, and can only be cleansed by being periodically sent to the public disinfector. The change of clothing made twice a week refers to the cotton clothing which alone is necessary during the greater part of the year, and is used as under clothing in the winter.
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS.
While in the matter of the quilted bed-covers the Directors were not able to fall in with ny proposals, and in other inatters lack of available funds or the pressure of outside Chinese opinion rendered them unable to carry out certain improvements which they themselves recognised as desir- able, I have throughout the year experienced the most marked kindness and courtesy in all my relations both with the former Board and with those who have recently entered on office. The enlightened policy that is consistently guiding their action in their management of the affairs of the Hospital is rapidly producing improvement of the institution on all sides of its work.