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the Plague Epidemic of 1894, Dr. James A. Lowson, Medical Officer in charge of the Epidemic Hospital and Acting >uperintendent of Government Civil Hospital and Lunatic Asylum, said "If proper sanitary precautions are taken, no civilised country should ever be the seat of an epidemic of plague. I am bound to "admit that if ever any place was ripe for such an epidemic, certain parts of "Hongkong in May 1894 were.
It is satisfactory to know that attempts are being made by those in authority to remedy faults which have been accumulating for years, and which have been "pointed out but without result." Since 1894, with the exception of manfully fighting the epidemic as it annually occurred, with a grievously undermanned Medical and Nursing Staff, practically nothing has been done on the lines of recognised prophylactic measures against Plague, or to improve the Sanitary Con- ditions of the Colony.
CC
26.—In forwarding Dr. Lowson's report to the Government, the late Colonial Surgeon, on 2nd March, 1895, wrote as follows:--
The necessity for remedying the results of faulty construction of the houses in the Chinese quarters, the want of ventilation, light and air in them, the impossibility of keeping them clean and wholesome, the inadequate water supply, the want of proper drainage, the overcrowded condition of the houses, the filthy condition of wells, the recessity for proper latrine accommodation, and the enormous amount of filth collected in the houses have now been fully revealed. I first called the attention of Government to the state of things I have mentioned in my report dated the 15th April, 1874, within six months of my arrival in this Colony. In this report I mentioned by name the streets and lanes, and the position of many gullies without a name in that portion of Taipingshan which has now been walled in, and the condition of filth in which I found the houses, also streets and alleys in other portions of the town; almost the same state of things was found in 1894. Yet a further special report was sent in by a Commission appointed to verify the statements made in my report which was sent in in May 1875. In 1880 Mr. Chadwick arrived with a Royal Commisssion to investigate the condition of things described, and his full report to the Secretary of State appeared in a Blue Book. Six years afterwards he again visited the Colony and expresse his surprise at finding how little had been done to remedy the state of things he had described, and again reported on them. Many laws have been made in the twenty years previous to 1594 to remedy the insanitary state of the Colony, but most have remained dead letters owing to the difficulties of enforcing them and the prejudices of the Chinese especially and other sections of the community.
Since 1874 the divisions of the City of Victoria inhabited by Chinese have increased more then three fold in size, and the new portions are in nearly as bad a condition as the old.
The labours of Hercules in cleansing the Augean stables were a trifle compared with that which the Government has to contend with in the near future in cleansing the City of Victoria and other inhabited portions of the Colony.
27.—Dr. J. A. Lowson attributed the predisposing causes of plague to “be "insanitary conditions, of these, filth and overcrowding must be reckoned as two of the most important factors." The main causes of the spread of the disease he attributed to the following:-
1) Want of means for the isolation of people who were almost
certainly incubating the disease.
(2) The grossly insanitary condition of the latrines.
(3) Overcrowding.
(4) Want of efficient house scavenging and the filthy habits of the
inhabitants.