455
Enclosure III.
Report of the Medical Officer of Victoria Gaol.
VICTORIA GAOL,
HONGKONG, 27th January, 1899.
SIR,--I have the honour to submit, for the information of His Excellency the Governor, the medical report of the health and sanitary condition of Victoria Gaol for the year 1898.
The total number of Admissions to the Gaol was 5,427, as compared with 5,076 in 1897 and 5,582 in 1896 ; and the daily average number of prisoners was 511, as compared with 462 and 514 in the previous two years respectively.
298 prisoners were admitted to the Gaol Hospital, as compared with 342 in 1897 and 507 in 1896; and 1,033 less serious cases, including skin diseases, were treated in the cells, as compared with 455 in 1897 and 740 in 1896. In these figures no account is taken of a large number of trivial com- plaints made daily, many of them by malingerers trying to shirk labour tasks to which they have been sentenced.
The Hospital cases included 33 Malarial Fever, 12 Venereal Diseases, 11 Rheumatism, 14 General Debility, and 17 Mechanical Injuries. A considerable number of these injuries were known, or believed, to have been self-inflicted in order to escape hard labour. Eleven of the cases of skin disease among Europeans were Pemphigus Contagiosus, all of which occurred during the month of September. They were at once isolated, and daily inspection of all European prisoners was carried out until cases ceased to appear. No cases occurred among the Chinese prisoners.
The increase in the number of extern cases was due partly to the smaller number received into Hospital, but chiefly to a more systematic treatment of all cases of skin disease and venereal disorders. The following extracts from the appended table and from the corresponding table of last year illustrate this :-
Syphilis,. Gonorrhoea,
1897.
1898.
....86
149
....39
73
164
.60
172
.49
177
Diseases dependent on Animal Parasites,.........82
"
21
݂ܵܕ
Vegetable
""
Other Skin Diseases,......
I have endeavoured also to make the largest possible use of the Gaol towards the stamping out of Small-pox in the Colony, and all prisoners admitted during the year have been vaccinated, when calf lymph has been available, unless age, health, or other consideration rendered the operation undesirable. Formerly only long-sentence prisoners were vaccinated. The number of persons vaccinated was 4,507, a very much larger number than in any previous year. One of the appended tables shows the number and results of vaccinations in the Gaol during the past ten years. It will be noted that a very considerable proportion of the prisoners vaccinated have had marks of previous vaccination. After all due allowance is made for the fact that in the case of habitual criminals many of such previous marks were probably made in the Gaol itself during former imprisonments, it seems evident that vaccination is fairly wide-spread among the Chinese of this neighbourhood.
A case of Small-pox having occurred in a European warder in the month of January, I promptly made a careful inspection of all the officers and inmates of the institution for marks of previous vacci- nation or of Small-pox, and, with the assistance of Dr. CHUNG KING UE and the late Dr. U I KAI, vaccinated all who were unable to prove either recent vaccination or an actual attack of Small-pox. Of 498 persons inspected, 290 were vaccinated, as follows:-
European Officers,
Indian Officers,
Native Servants,
Prisoners,...............
Examined.
Vaccinated.
22
21,
33
33
6
4
....437
232
Total,.............
.498
200