892
SANITATION
A correspondent sends some further comment on the insanitary conditions in Hongkong sixty years ago, when, it is recorded, pigs were kept in a large number of Chinese dwellings all over the city:
"Old Timer." - "Your interesting comment concerning 'Rangels Labyrinth' and the pigsties (31-8-33), no doubt, came as a shock to most readers. The details given, however, by no means represent the worst in the insanitary conditions such as existed in the Colony at that time. For your information, I take the following excerpt from a report, dated 5th April, 1875, presented by Dr. Ayres, the Colonial Surgeon:
"My first series of inspections discovered that pigs were kept in houses all over the town, by hundreds, and that pigsties were to be found under the beds and in the kitchens of first, second and third floors. I visited many houses in which over a hundred pigs were kept; every bed in these houses had from five to seven large pigs in a sty, constructed beneath it, and either from the connivance, or ignorance of a late Inspector of Markets, whose duty it was to see that the pigs were kept in proper places, many of the people had Government Licences so to keep their pigs."
"I would add, that for reasons of State, better understood by the officials then in power than by the general community, this report was not published until the year 1881, when it was printed in a volume of parliamentary papers by the Governor at that time.
"I think, I am correct in stating that, as a result of the expose contained in the aforementioned report, the Secretary of State for the Colonies subsequently appointed Mr. Chadwick to report on the whole of the details in connection with sanitation in Hongkong and it was in consequence of Mr. Chadwick's report thereon that sanitary reformation in the Colony took place."
Yesterday's article dealt mainly with the fever which almost devastated the Colony in its earlier years. In connexion with the efforts made to combat malaria and other sickness various sanitary measures were introduced, even in the era before sanitary science such as we have to-day. That the Colony badly needed a proper health organisation, even up to about fifty years ago, is patent from the old records. We have seen in earlier comment in this column (1-9-33) how pigs were kept in dwelling houses in the Seventies, in all parts of the town, people actually having the animals on upper floors, and sleeping on bed-spaces under which were several pigs: that practically a whole floor became a pig-sty, with human occupants sharing the gross insanitation with the animals. Let us investigate the earliest efforts to bring proper care of public health to Hongkong.
80
It was noted, in yesterday's comment on "Hongkong fever", that the opening years of the Colony's history saw much sickness and mortality; yet it was not until four years after the founding of the Colony that some official effort was made to counter disease. We read: