406
9. Before looking at the actual figures, there are two circumstances that need to be mentioned, and for which due allowance must be made:--
(1)-The treatment with Carbolic Acid was commenced late in the epidemic, at a stage when there is a greater natural tendency to recovery, the disease being invariably more virulent early in the season.
(2) Coincidently with my beginning the use of Carbolic Acid, Dr. BELL announced his modification of Ross's method for the examination of a thick film of malaria blood as a method for the examination of plague blood; and as a consequence of this improved means of diagnosis a much larger number of very mild cases, many of which would not have been diagnosed as Plague in former years, were proved to be Plague and sent to Kennedy Town. These cases swelled the pro- portion of cases recovering.
10. I should like in passing to express iny sense of the great value of BELL'S method for the diagnosis of Plague. I at once put it in routine use both at Tung Wah Hospital and at Kennedy Town Hospital. At Kennedy Town it has not only added to precision of diagnosis, but it has enabled one to watch more definitely the progress of the illness; and I have used this, as I have mentioned, as my guide in the use of Carbolic Acid, while disappearance of the Plague Bacilli from the blood circulation has become a sine quâ non before discharge from the Hospital.
11. The following tables show the racial and general mortality before and during the use of Carbolic Acid; and to facilitate comparison I submit the total figures for the current year, to date, alongside the corresponding figures for 1901 and 1902:-
BEFORE CARBOLIC ACID WAS USED,
i.e., in the First Half of the Epidemic.
European-
Portuguese.
Chinese,
CONTALES-
CASES.
CCRED.
DEATHS.
MORTALITY.
CENT.
N
123
15
Other Races,
14
139
18
20
:
ན་
N
Europeans,
UNDER THE USE OF CARBOLIC ACID,
i.e., in the Second Half of the Epidemic.
1
50.0°
106
86.2
12
85.7.
119
85.6°
22
17
1
4.5°
Portuguese,
1
1
Chinese,
80
31
3
46
57.5 >
Other Races,
40
20
15
10
5
12.5
""
143
69
22
52
ལ
91
36.4
ט