412
WORK DONE DURING THE YEAR,
The number of patients in the Hospital at the beginning of the year was 132; 2,776 were admitte during 1897, making a total of 2,908 under treatment; 1,793 were discharged; 994 died; leaving 121 on the evening of 31st December.
The admissions during the past ten years have been :
1888.
1889,
1890,
1891.
1892,
1893,
1894,
1895,
2,298
2,050
2,260
2,514
2.455
2,255
2,354
2,732
2,041
2,776
1896,
1897,
From these figures it will be seen that the number of admissions last year is greater than in any year during the decade, which fact may be regarded as affording satisfactory evidence that the new order of things in the Tung Wa Hospital is not resented by the Chinese public.
Of the 2,908 cases treated during the year, 463 were treated according to Western methods by Dr. CHUNG, including 11 of those remaining on 1st January who transferred themselves to his care, and 114 were sent as follows:-45 to Government Civil Hospital, 5 to Lunatic Asylum, 52 (36 Small- pox and 16 Plague) to Kennedy Town Hospital, 4 to Alice Memorial Hospital, 6 to Nethersole Hos- pital, and 2 to French Convent.
117,542 consultations in the Out-Patient Department, which is a separate building on the opposite side of Po Yan Street, under the Pó Leung Kuk, are reported by the six native doctors.
1,864 Vaccinations were performed in Hongkong itself, and 278 in the out-lying districts, making a total of 2,142, as compared with 1,601 during 1896, by a public vaccinator connected with the Tung Wa Hospital.
661 male destitutes, including 75 ship-wrecked sailors, were supplied with food and shelter for varying periods during the year. Similar work among women is done by the Pó Léung Kuk.
Of the 994 deaths, 506 (408 male and 97 female) were moribund on admission, death occurring within a few hours after reception into the hospital.
In addition to the above, 419 dead bodies (315 male and 104 female) were brought to the Tung Wa Hospital Mortuary to await burial. In the case of these, as has been mentioned, an approximate diagnosis of the causes of death for purposes of the Honourable Registrar-General's returns was made by means of inspection of the bodies and examination of the relatives as to the symptoms and duration of the antecedent diseases.
The custom that prevails among the Chinese of removing so many of the dying and the dead from the crowded coolie quarters and poorer homes of the city, while mayhap it hastens the end of some of the former, is decidedly advantageous to the public health of the community.
Besides those actually moribund when admitted, a very large proportion of the patients brought to the Tung Wa Hospital are hopeless from the beginning, and would be regarded as such in any European hospital. The chief benefit they receive is that they spend their last days amid what is to them comparative ease and comfort. These include numerous cases of advanced phthisis, heart disease, beri-beri, cachexia from neglected wounds and abscesses, malarial conditions, and the general debility of old age.
With regard to malarial diseases, the mortality has in the past been out of all proportion to the admissions, and, while to some extent due to the pernicious forms of fever that prevail in some of the out-lying districts from which many of the cases come, has been chiefly the result of the neglect of the use of quinine, the specific remedy for malaria. In the latter part of the year I have insisted on the use of this drug in all cases diagnosed malarial, whether nominally under Western treatment or not. Considerable improvement has also been effected in the arrangements for the dieting of fever cases,
I append the following Tables :-
I. Showing the Admissions and Mortality in the Tung Wa Hospital during the year 1897; II. Showing General Statistics relating to the Tung Wa Hospital during the year 1897; III. Showing Vaccinations at, and in connection with, the Tung Wa Hospital during the
year 1897.
Table I. is compiled in accordance with the Nomenclature of Diseases of the Royal College of Physicians, London; and also shows the proportion of cases treated according to European and Chinese methods respectively.
I have the honour to be.
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
Dr. J. M. ATKINSON,
Principal Civil Medical Officer,
Se..
sc.
JOHN C. THOMSON, M.D., M.A....
Inspecting Medical Officer.