436
ja Supply.:
hoal Atten- ne Hospitals.
Rats.
agon arrange- ments.
clusion.
supply is good, but at times only available at certain hours of the day. There are also two wells in the rear of the village. These are open and the water is drawn from them by standing on a stone slab placed across the mouth of the well and lowering into them the vessel brought for the purpose. This system is bad. It renders the water liable to infection 1st. from the vessel which has been brought from a house in which infectious disease may exist and 2nd, to contamination by matter brought on the feet of the drawers of the water, which dirt must be washed into the well itself.
There is a market under special market inspection. Food is also sold at street stalls which is cooked in the open street. The arrangements seem good.
There is, I am told, no qualified Medical man practising in this village. This must make the detection of infectious cases especially difficult. There is no hospital of any kind. The only provision which I learned was made to dispose of rats, was that 8 cents are offered as a reward for each rat collected. When rats are brought in this way they are treated with Chloride of Lime and then sent with the dust carts. It would be better to burn them.
When the Sanitary Inspector suspects a case to be one of plague, the case is sent in an ambulance to hospital in Hongkong. There are but two such ambulances at his disposal. I was unable to ascertain how these ambulances were disinfected and understood that infectious diseases of other nature were sent in these same ambulances. After the case has been diagnosed in hospital the clothing and bedding of all people of the house is sent to Hongkong (via Yaumati) in a basket for disinfection. Other clothing is lent to these people in the meantime by Government. The house is fumigated and the floor and furniture washed with disinfectants (Jeyes Fluid). The walls and ceiling are washed with lime and Chloride of Lime. The house is re-occupied as soon as the disinfected clothing has been returned. The principal objection to this course is 1st. that the patient is removed to hospital before the case has been diagnosed by a qualified Medical man 2nd. that the house seems to be too quickly re-occupied 3rd. that the case is sent to Yaumati first thence to Hongkong and 4th, that although the house, furniture, clothing and bedding of people in an infected house are disinfected the people themselves do not seem to be required to bathe or use any disinfectants. Dead bodies of plague cases are similarly sent first to Yaumati and thence to Hongkong. These bodies are placed in India Rubber lined wooden boxes supposed to be air tight. They did not seem to me to be so as the lid of the one I examined was warped and the rubber lining in parts worn away. They are carried by the first two coolies who can be impressed. This does not seem desirable.
In conclusion I would state that I found the sanitary condition