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mortuary after the Government officer engaged in examination of bodies received has left for the day, no report can be received until after the examination of the bodies next day. The house is then disinfected by scrubbing the furniture and spraying the walls, while the clothing is sent to the Disinfecting Station.
The Medical Officer of Health mentions two hours as the time in which the clothing may be expected to be returned. I have visited the Disinfecting Station and seen the process carried out. Bedding, clothing, and other belongings, shoes, umbrellas, &c., &c., are placed in large cradles and run into the disinfector on a smalĺ tramway. It takes on an average one hour to disinfect each charge, which can hardly comprise more than the contents of a floor, but when the epidemic is at its height, with possibly the contents of twenty to thirty houses to be disinfected, it will be seen that the estimate of the time that elapses before the return of the clothing is much under the mark. In the meantime the inmates of the houses are perforce idle, and the loss of a day's or perhaps two days' work to the average coolie is not a light matter. Complaints were made that in the process of disinfection much injury was done to the belongings of the people, and it was whispered that squeezes were extracted by the coolies engaged in disinfection under the threat of injuring furniture and other belongings in the process of disinfection if money were not paid. This was a matter that no amount of supervision by the Inspector could control, and the Chinese were afraid to come forward and complain openly. There is absolutely no proof that this assertion is true, but there is no doubt that the feeling existed and helped to intensify the dread of the operations of the Sanit- ary Authorities.
4. To allay this feeling I had a meeting of the Principal Civil Medical Officer, the Acting Medical Officer of Health, and the Chinese members of the Sanitary Board, and arranged with them that in each health district the inhabitants should appoint a Kai-fong or committee, and that in every case of disinfection notice should be sent to the Kai-fong, two members of which, with the Sanitary Inspector should form a committee to appraise there and then any damage done and give a joint certificate of the amount, which the Sanitary Board undertook to pay. It was also announced by leaflets distributed among the Chinese that in all cases where sickness was timely reported, all the expense of disinfection would be borne by the Government.
5. This had no appreciable effect in diminishing the number of dumped bodies, and it was evident that the passive resistance of the Chinese continued. This was shown by the fact that when rat traps were set in Chinese houses the traps were found to be sprung, as the finding of an infected rat resulted in the same inconve- nience as followed the discovery of a case of plague; still, large numbers of rats were delivered to the mortuary for examination, 88,862 having been paid for from 1st January to 13th of July this year, of which 3,476, or 3.9% were found to be infected. Each rat had a label attached showing the house or place where found, and where the address of a house was given that house was duly disinfected. Again, I heard whispers, of which no proof could be given, that the rat catchers levied a respectable toll by hinting at the probability of a plague rat being found about the premises in the absence of a tangible evidence of goodwill, and, on at least one occasion, indignant protest was made by the householder subjected to disinfection that no rat had been caught in his house, and no trap had been set there. About a fortnight ago colour was given to these whispers. I had requested that certain experiments, of which I shall speak later, should be carried out with rats, but although two thousand rats per week were being returned and paid for, Dr. HUNTER, the Government Bacteriologist, found a difficulty in obtaining the live rats that he required. This probably aroused suspicions and resulted in the following minutes of the Acting Medical Officer of Health :-
"SECRETARY,
I believe I am right in saying that, at the Confidential Meeting of the Board
· held on June 30th a resolution was passed to the effect that the Government should be asked to sanction for the rest of the year the modification of the scheme for dealing with rats suggested for next year's procedure. For information of the Government it may be well to explain that the reasons for this change are as follows:
1. A large sum of money is now paid in bonus for rats collected in the
streets.
ī
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