No. 62.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
The following Annual Report of the Colonial Surgeon, with Returns annexed, for the Year 1873, is published for general information.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 2nd April, 1874.
J. GARDINER AUSTIN, Colonial Secretary.
VICTORIA, HONGKONG, 9th March, 1874.
SIR,-I have the honor to forward my Annual Report for the year 1873, concerning the health of the Colony and the working of the different establishments under my supervision.
In making out this Report, which contains the usual Tables compiled from observations made during the past year on the health of the Colony, I must premise that I have to depend in a great measure on information received from others who have kindly assisted me, owing to my late arrival in the Colony; still there are some things on which even my limited experience enables me to speak strongly, and which require little time for any one to see the necessity of reformning.
POLICE.
Table I. shows the admissions and deaths of Police in Hospital during the past year. The houlth of the Police, all things considered, has been fairly good, and sickness is less in proportion to the strength of the force than last year, though the mortality is greater.
The deaths have been chiefly among the Indian portion of the force and the result, in most cases, of Diarrhea in men who have suffered much from fever and whose spleens were excessively diseased. The native clothing which they prefer to wear when off duty is quite unsuited to this climate and renders them specially liable to attacks of diseases of the bowels from the effects of cold.
Very few of the Indian recruits come up to the standard required of thirty-six inches girth of chest, indeed most of them are very considerably below that, more attention seems to be paid to length than breadth the result is long weedy looking men wanting in muscular development and activity. It would also be better, I think, thst Indians should arrive here at the beginning of or in the hot season than in the cold, which is more variable and severe than they are accustomed to.
Table II, shows the strength of the force as compared with the sickness and mortality. The principal cause of admissions was Diarrhea, Simple Continued Fever, a few severe cases of Remittent Fever, and Chest Diseases.
TROOPS.
Table III. gives the strength, sickness and mortality of the Troops in Hongkong in 1873. The rate of sickness and the mortality have greatly diminished when compared with 1872.
GOVERNMENT CIVIL HOSPITAL.
The present building with all possible care cannot last many years longer, the floors are at present a long way off what those of a Hospital should be and the building is not worth the repairs it requires, all this setting aside the unsuitableness of the building for a Hospital at all, for which it was never designed.
That things are no worse than they are is due to the able supervision, activity and care of its Superintendent, Dr. WHARRY, of whose knowledge and performance of his arduous duties, I can speak with great pleasure. The Hospital Subordinates too deserve praise and I do not think their value in some cases is sufficiently well understood. One of the European Wardmasters has hardly been in the post a year the other just appointed. It is greatly to be desired in the interest of the Institution that there should be as few changes as possible in these posts, it is impossible to get men that are trained without going to great expense in bringing them out from home and it takes more than