It's no doubt advisable to have every plague patient properly isolated but I fail to see how this can be done in practice as the Chinese do not like to part with our sick until there is no hope of saving them, and it is only in extreme cases, especially in the case of husband and wife and mother and child that they should do so. It has been amply known from experience that the Chinese rather conceal their sick until the last moment and dump their dead in cases where their fellow lodgers would be involved in trouble in order to avoid detection than to submit to forcible removal. Would it not therefore be better to give them the option of treating their sick in their own houses or in some places where the relatives can tend their sick or soothe the mind of the sick by being present oftener, thus ensuring the disinfection of every infected building and placing every plague patient under proper surveillance. The bye-law as to isolation has proved to be a failure; it is time that some new scheme should be tried.
In an early step towards resolving the problem, it was decreed that infant corpses could be brought to dispensaries, no questions asked, and a $1 reward given. Street Committees were appointed and coordination and funding entrusted to the Directors of the Tung Wah Hospital.
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Founder and Chief President in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1913. Official Member of the Legislative Council (18) and Director of the Po Leung Kuk.
An indication of what the Chinese community wanted is provided by the report of letters from Mr. Lau Chu Pak (a member of the deputation at Government House) read at a meeting of the Sanitary Board on Tuesday, 24 December 1907.
The dumping of dead bodies in the streets or the harbour had been a life-threatening issue and all efforts to put a stop to it had been ineffective. Suspicions that the practice was the result of infanticide were disproved and the main reason it continued was fear of disinfection of households by the foreign authorities.