76
to the use of the phrase "prima facie ground for believing",
and also because there is no limit fixed for the period of
detention in Hospital. In the case of scarlet fever etc.,
}
鼻
But
the detention is limited by the fact that the risk of infec-
tion is over after a certain comparatively short time.
in the case of syphilis the period during which the patient
may be said to be "suffering from the disease", or at any
rate when the patient is liable to give the disease to others,
is quite indefinite, and may vary from six months to two or
more years.
nance
II. As to the Straits. The Governor appointed a Committee
which took evidence on the question. It is not necessary to
criticise this evidence in detail, as it hardly touches the
question referred to the Governor by Mr. Chamberlain, viz: in
what way rules similar to the Indian Cantonment Regulations
could be applied to the Colony. The witnesses were questioned
principally as to the results of the repeal of the C.D. Ordi-
7 and the advisability of re-enacting some such Ordinance.
That question Mr.Chamberlain has already decided in the nega-
tive. Most of the statistics given by the witnesses are incon-
clusive because of an absence of such considerations as in-
crease of population, and also because e.g. in the case of Chinese males and the Tan Tock seng Hospital it seems to be
assumed that the increased admissions for venereal disease
are wholly due to an increase in the number of Chinese in the
Colony affected by that disease; whereas it is in part at any rate accounted for by the fact that the Chinese are beginning more and more to take advantage generally of our hospitals.
1 note one extraordinary statement as to the method of
carrying out the compulsory examinations under the old Ordi-
nance. The doctors seen to have competed with one another
ŷ
0.65
of print
D.EA
of print
As stated in the Army Medi- cal Report for 1895.
as to the speed with which they could examine women; the
Such a proceeding shows record being 120 women per hour!
It is absurd to sup-
what a farce these examinations were.
pose that examining two women a minute could afford any
Moreover such hasty guarantee as to their state of health. work must have rendered antiseptic precautions impossible, with the probable result which I believe has been noted in other countries, that the disease was conveyed from one
woman to another by the examining surgeon.
The evidence tends to show that there is a growing
on the part of tendency, though of very slow development,
these women to take advantage of some sort of medical treat- ment, either from Chinese or English 'practitioners, or from the Government hospitals. This tendency is only what was 50 be expected; and it is also supported by the only systema-
viz: the Army Medical tic statistics bearing on the subject Returns. I annex a Manuscript Return obtained from the War
In 1888 Office of the figures for the last eleven years.
the Ordinance was repealed. This was followed by a very
considerable rise in the ratio per thousand of total admis-
sions, in the year 1889. The years 1890 to 1694 show a
In 1895 again from 646 to 365 per thousand. steady fall, there was a big rise, but that is explained by the Senior (Military) Medical Officer as being not due to anything in Singapore itself, but as having chiefly occurred in a bat-
talion which arrived from India early in the year and ac-
total
Since 1895 there counted for more than half the admissions.
Medical Refort as been a very marked fall, from 625 to 368. €1897 h..
155
It is true that the 1897 figures in the Straits are distinctly higher than the figures when the Ordinance was
in
as