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HONG KONG.
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REPORTS EXHIBITING THE PAST AND PRESENT
TABLE NO. 9. The comparative Sickness and Mortality for the last four Years amongst Persons employed by Government, including Policemen, &c., and Prisoners.
Years. Number of Persons Employed. Number of Cases Number of Deaths. Proportion of Cases of Sickness to Strength. Per Cent, Proportion of Deaths to Strength. Per Cent, 1845 775 501 27 65 3.48 1846 847 655 28 77 3.3 1847 833 1,280 20 153.6 2.4 1848 1,333 418 46 31.35 3.4It will be seen that the proportion of deaths to strength retains, through the four years, almost an equal proportion; the year 1847 presenting the lowest, and 1845 the highest rate of mortality. There can be no doubt that, but for the improved salubrity of this island by that most certain means of modifying disease, and counteracting and destroying its sources, the presence of civilization, the records of this year, peculiar for the intensity of its summer, would have presented a melancholy catalogue of disease and death.
TABLE NO. 10.—Showing the fixed European Population in Hong Kong during the Year 1848, and the Proportion of Deaths.
Number of Europeans, including Women and Children, Number of Deaths, including Women and Children, Proportion of Deaths Per Cent. 963 125 12.9This table is based upon information supplied by the Registrar-General. In the corresponding table of last year the seamen were excepted from the aggregate of strength and deaths. Europeans include "Europeans, Americans, and Portuguese;" many of the latter are indigenous, and in some there has been an infusion of Chinese blood. The military, &c. are excepted in this return. The amount of mortality thus furnished by the Registrar-General does not correspond with the returns made by the colonial surgeon of Europeans buried in the colonial burying-ground; and a return, most politely furnished, and collated with great care, by his Highness the Roman Catholic Prelate, of Europeans buried in the Roman Catholic cemeteries. These documents afford the following results:
Buried in the colonial burial-ground in 1848- Civilians 20 Merchant seamen 25 Naval seamen 18 Buried in the Roman Catholic ground- Civilians of all classes 33 Total 53 35 88If from these the seamen, whose diseases are for the most part imported, and who cannot be regarded as belonging to the fixed population of the colony, be excepted, the deaths of civilians would be reduced to 55, which would give a proportion of mortality in relation to the fixed European population of 5.7 per cent. I allow the Registrar-General's statistics, however, preference to my own, and have constructed my table on the basis of his calculations; but the discrepancy is inexplicable.
TABLE No. 11.—The entire Population of Hong Kong, and Proportion of Deaths amongst People of all Nations, in 1847 and 1848.
Years, Entire Population. Number of Deaths of Persons of all Nations. Proportion of Deaths to Population. Per Cent. 1847 21,514 384 1.78 1848 23,872 282 1.14STATE OF HER MAJESTY'S COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.
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It appears that in the year 1848, as compared with 1847, the population was more, not less, and the mortality was lower. In the year 1847, Manchester, which is remarkable for being exempt from the invasions of epidemics, experienced a relative mortality exceeding the average of years, in consequence of the influx of Irish, retreating from the famine; in that year, therefore, the proportion of mortality was 4.9 per cent. The average proportion of mortality in Manchester is about 3.1 per cent. per annum; which is only a little below the average proportion of mortality amongst Europeans in Hong Kong. In the face of these facts, policies of life-insurances continue to be 100 per cent higher in Hong Kong than in Manchester.
My friend Dr. Harland, of the Seaman's Hospital, has kindly furnished me with a tabular view of his practice in that institution, during the year 1848; whereby it appears that there were 203 cases treated, and 30 deaths occurred.
Dr. Harland says,
According to the above table, the mortality for 1848 is "14.77 per cent., being an increase over that of 1847, when it was 11.02 per cent., and less than in 1846, when it amounted to 21·14 per cent.
The mortality from some of the diseases appears excessive, especially in cases of pneumonia and acute dysentery.
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"Intermittent fever has been by far the most prevalent disease during the year; for many patients have been attacked with it whilst under treatment for other diseases, besides the comparatively large number of cases admitted directly, under this head. In the month of August particularly, in one of the wards exposed to the south-west wind, blowing down the gap opposite the hospital, every patient, during the same afternoon, was seized with ague, and had repeated attacks, notwithstanding the use of quinine, until removed into another ward not similarly exposed. After removal they quickly got well, and no case occurred at the time in any other ward, that being the only one so exposed."
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My friend Dr. Peter Young favours me with the following statement of his views and experience of disease prevailing during the past year :--
"Remittent and intermittent fevers have generally been mild and amenable to treatment. Those cases which terminated fatally lost their remittent type, and passed into a continued and typhoid character. Dysentery has never presented itself to me in the acute form ascribed to it by Eastern writers on this disease; and those cases which have fallen under my notice during the past year have had their origin in functional disorder of the liver. During the year I never met with a case of fever at all resembling the epidemic which prevailed in 1843."
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My friend Dr. Balfour writes, "The most prevalent diseases in my practice, during the past year, were simple and bilious diarrhoea and intermittent fever, chiefly of the tertian type, which yielded very speedily to mild remedies. The number of deaths was about 1 per cent. of the patients under treatment."
Dr. Gordon, Staff Assistant-surgeon, whose zeal and intelligence during the prevalence of fever in the 95th regiment were subjects of universal admiration, kindly replies to my several queries respecting that disease, as follows:-
"A large majority of the cases, and those most fatal, came from the south or rear range of the barracks.
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"The disease was first observed about the first week in May; the increase in June was not very great; but in July the increase in the number and severity of the cases was great. It continued during August, and sensibly decreased during September.
The average duration of disease was about 56 hours.
"Death generally occurred about the third day, but in many instances a few hours after admission.
"The disease was called 'febris remittens,' and described as congestive and malignant."
In addition to the foregoing brief remarks, Dr. Gordon has placed at my service a paper, which it is hoped he will be induced to publish, containing a most interesting and intelligent account of this disease. I believe I am not peculiar in considering it nearly identical with the yellow fever of the West Indies, which is said never to occur in the East, although indeed the earliest name the yellow fever received was "maladie de Siam." I always held the opinion that, although the fever of last summer was probably endemic, it was ...
HONG KONG.