Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
REPORTS EXHIBITING THE PRESENT STATE
the Chinese hospital can be built, to which, besides a large grant from the Government, the wealthy Chinese have liberally subscribed. The death rate is still very great however; for out of 211 admissions since the 9th of June to the 31st December, 89 died, and 19 remained in the establishment.
Small-pox was not met with during the past year much more frequently than in 1868, only one admission having taken place at the Government Civil Hospital, although there were 10 cases admitted at the Seaman's Hospital, but most of the latter were from vessels.
No epidemic of any kind visited the Colony during the year.
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IV. THE LOCK HOSPITAL.
Lately the Contagious Diseases Acts have been brought somewhat prominently before public notice, singularly enough by an association of "earnest and pertinacious ladies who are banded together with the avowed object of procuring the repeal of these Acts." It therefore behoves those who are, like myself, greatly in favour of their extension, and who possess unusual opportunities of judging of their working, to come forward and express their convictions and I need not therefore hesitate to record, in this Official Report, the result of about twelve years' daily supervision of the system of inspection and control, as carried out in this Colony.
It appears to me that the questions of most importance to be answered are:-
1. Does syphilitic disease left unchecked inflict serious injury not only on the individual infected, but on generations unborn?
2. Is it possible by any legislative means to check the spread of this fearful scourge?
3. How far can legislative interference be applied to the male as well as to the female sex?
4. What has been in this Colony the sanitary result of such interference?
It will not be necessary to dilate on the first point. It is unfortunately too well known how the victims of this loathsome disease are lowered in their moral and physical condition; how from symptom to symptom they may, after years of misery, sink finally into a premature grave. But it is not perhaps so well known that the wide-spread scrofulous and consumptive taint of the human race is traced by some men of science to a syphilitic poison. Nor is it sufficiently recognized how such a poison coursing through the system renders the infected person immeasurably more liable to and less able to resist the inroad of other diseases. This is a subject particularly important to the residents of tropical climates; for could the united experience of medical practitioners in the tropics be reduced to a statistical form it would prove not a little startling to find how large a proportion of the mortality and invaliding could be traced directly or remotely to syphilitic disease.
That it is possible to a great extent to reduce, if not entirely prevent, the spread of this disease by legislative measures is a fact generally admitted by all unprejudiced persons. A most notable instance of this power was seen some years ago in Malta, where up to 1859 a strict system of supervision and personal inspection was maintained and the disease was in consequence almost unknown. The system was then abandoned, as it was found to be a "traditional abuse of power," which at last was resisted by the peculiar class of persons concerned, and Malta, for a time and until the passing of an Ordinance, became as bad as any other garrison town in respect to contagious disease. The same result cannot be shown in Hong Kong, but I shall be able presently to point out the great improvement that has resulted from legislative interference, not only in reducing the extent, but also the malignity of the disease.
The great outcry against the Contagious Diseases Acts now (for the old plea of the immorality of licensing vice has been partly abandoned) is that they deal unfairly in the case of the two sexes, and as the present opponents of these Acts say, punish the comparatively innocent female and let her more guilty partner in iniquity go free. This is a great mistake on their part, for these Acts are not introduced for the purpose of punishment, but with the sole object of restricting the extent of contagion and curing the disease. Moreover, in this Colony at least, the Acts are as far as practicable applied to the male sex equally. Thus before leave is granted to seamen of the Royal Navy they all undergo medical inspection, and are detained on board if found diseased. By a very slight outlay a similar inspection might be made of all merchant seamen, and I hope still to see that this will be considered to be one of the duties of the Health Officer or Officers of the port. The whole of the police force undergo a similar examination once every month, and certainly the soldiers of the garrison might be equally examined. Lastly, as if to meet
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* Sir H. Storks recommends that the men should be examined at least once in seven days,