11
Doctors - The Medical Hall
The missionaries were in Hong Kong to relate to the Chinese; doctors from Germany served the health needs of the German community and any others who consulted them.
Dr. Carl Friedrich Arnold Schetelig was in practice in Hong Kong in the 1860s. In 1861 he was also the steward of the German Club and in 1867 its librarian. He was married to Julie von Pustau; presumably she was connected with the merchant family, though her brother was an attorney in Hamburg. Dr Schetelig returned to Hamburg where he died. His will was probated in Hong Kong in 1901.
The list of enemy alien properties in liquidation in 1914 gives the date of the establishment of the Medical Hall as 1853. Its proprietor was Dr. Harold von Kauffman. He married a Spanish woman, Emelia Manuela. When he left Hong Kong in 1873 with his wife and four children, a relative Mr. Theophil Koffer took over the management of the Medical Hall, which was located on a central site on Queen's Road. Dr. Kauffman died at Wiesbaden in May 1891. A year before Dr. Kauffmann left Hong Kong, Emil Niedhardt arrived to assume the position of chemist in the pharmacy. Upon the departure of T. Koffer, Niedhardt became the proprietor of the business. He retired in 1913 after forty-one years in Hong Kong. His friends tendered him a farewell dinner at the German Club. H. Kammel, an apothecary, was admitted a partner in 1897. In 1914 at the time of liquidation, the pharmacy was on Ice House Street opposite the King Edward Hotel. Two pharmaceutical chemists were in charge, A. Kucy and W. Kornelz.
Dr. Carl Clouth practiced in Hong Kong from about 1876 to 1883 or later. His seven-year-old daughter died at Wiesbaden in 1883; at the time Dr. Clouth was referred to as being "of Hong Kong". (DP 6 Nov, 1883)
The 1873 Hong Kong Directory lists only two doctors with German-sounding names, H. Kauffmann and G. Gerlach. Johann Heinrich Karl Gerlach passed the Prussian State Medical Examination and qualified to practice in 1868. He appears on the Hong Kong Medical Register through the year 1900. Dr. Gerlach practiced in Hong Kong nearly thirty years; others came and went.