HONGKONG.
No. 1904
1
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR TO INQUIRE INTO THE CAUSES OF CHINESE INFANTILE MORTALITY IN THE COLONY.
Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government.
1. The Committee have held many meetings and have inspected the French and Italian Convents where most of the infantile deaths under one month occur.
2. This question of the Chinese infantile mortality has been often before the Government, the earliest obtainable records dating as far back as 1886 when the Hon. A. P. MACEWEN raised the question in the Legislative Council. The outcome of this was a most elaborate report from the late Secretary to the Sanitary Board (Mr. HUGH MACCALLUM) dealing with the whole question and locating this very largely to the two Convents. He has further clearly shown that this large death- rate was due not to any intrinsic defects existing in these two institutions, but to the large numbers of moribund children dumped at the doors of these Convents. Again, from reports obtained from the late Colonial Surgeon, Dr. AYRES, as well as from Drs. GERLACH and HARTIGAN, who attended the two Convents, the bulk of deaths under one month were attributed to the disease known as Trismus nascen- tium. It was also proved in these papers that the percentage of deaths in these Convents of children over one year, was not greater than that occurring in similar Foundling Institutions in Europe. With these conclusions the present Commit- tee generally agrees.
3. In 1896 the Medical Officer of Health, in his report to the Sanitary Board (C.S.O. 327 of 1896), discussed the infantile mortality in the Convents and chiefly the French Convent which has by far the largest admissions and deaths.
He says that he has little fault to find with the sanitary condition of the institution, but attributes the large mortality to the condition of the infants themselves. He further recommended the registration of "Chinese Midwives" and so called "Chinese Doctors" practising in this Colony. The result of this report was a large volume of correspondence and an attempt to introduce a Bill for this purpose, but which being found unworkable, on the showing of the Attorney General at the time, was dropped. In this correspondence we have evidence that the chief causes of infantile deaths registered were Trismus and Convulsive diseases.
4. In 1901 (C.S.O. 1367 of 1901) the Annual Report of Medical Officer of Health for 1900, again brought up the whole question of Chinese infantile mortality and of the unreliability of the registration of births and deaths. This led to another volume of correspondence in which the Medical Officer of Health endeavoured to introduce a Bill" to amend the Births and Deaths Registration Ordinance of 1896, giving him powers to order a post-mortem in every case where the death was not duly certified. Owing however to strong opposition from the Chinese this Bill was also dropped. The Medical Officer of Health further recommended that a small fee be paid to the midwives for every birth reported by them and in order to verify there the services of female visitors should be obtained to investigate the accuracy of these registrations, while the Committee of the Sanitary Board who were inquiring into the question, recommended that a fee of 50 cents be paid to either parent on the notification of the birth being made within one month.
5. In his report for 1902 the Medical Officer of Health says with regard to the infant death-rate being so high, that this means either that the Chinese infant death-rate is enormous or that a considerable number of births under one month remains unregistered, or perhaps that a number of infants are brought into the Colony from the mainland and die here. With regard to the latter part of this statement, these children were thought to be brought here for traffic to Singapore, and it called forth a letter from the Registrar General's Office dated 14th June, 1901, in C.S.O. 1895 on the subject, but on enquiry it was found that the officer who examines the women and children had always refused to allow women accom- panied by children evidently not their own to proceed South. In 1902 this officer from the Harbour Department reported that no suspicious case of this kind had come before him, so that this supposed traffic had evidently been stopped. Under