PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
HC.O. 885
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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the Medical Officer, instead of getting his legal 21., gets his 51. 5s. Your Lordship will find that there is a heavy expenditure under that head. Another thing is this, the law says that there shall be a Coroner's inquest on every person dying in any prison. I am sorry to say that this is not adhered to. I would instance the Leper's Home, I would instance the Lock Hospital, and I would instance the Reformatories. Few, if any, inquests, have been held. As a general rule they are not held in those institutions. My Lord, I do not know if you have received the reformatory papers; but if you
have I think you will see the necessity of a Coroner's inquest being held over every person dying in that institution.
Another sanitary measure which is an expensive one and is a useless one is quarantine. It is a perfect farce. Steamers come up to the wharves and take in coal the preventitive is two or three policemen. We know what policemen are, but every-` body does not know what a black policeman is; and the law is a farce. A few years hack the Quarantine Law, Jamaica, was repealed, and F believe it was repealed in all the islands. An Imperial Act was sent out to be passed by the different Govern- ments, and, if I understood it at the time, the great object was to have one set of regulations for the different islands naming the disease for which quarantine was to be enforced and the period of quarantine. My Lord, if you do not know it now and will inquire into the subject, I think you will find that there are not two islands now that have the same quarantine for the same diseases. There could not be a more splendid opportunity for testing the effects or non-effects of quarantine than in the West Indies. There are no printed regulations at all. In every place from every part of the island Government is appealed to, and that is a great defect.
Again, there is one other point, which is vaccination. My Lord, we have lately gone through a severe epidemic of small-pox. I have witnessed three or four in Jamaica. It is a frightful disease; it is an awful disease. The Legislation passed the Compulsory Vaccination Act years ago, but I can safely state that until 1872, after an inquiry which I got instituted, not one single person was brought up under the Vacci- nation Law. I think I need say but very little more about vaccination; it is so self- evident to everyone that the law is totally neglected. How could it be carried out properly with about 45 medical men with 600,000 people? During the last epidemic, non-professional vaccinators went about and worked hard, and they were regulary paid; but what was the consequence? They used re-vaccination lymph and out of every 20 vaccinated 18 caught the disease and many died.
Now as to the public hospital I stated that some years back there was an inquiry. I think, my Lord, you must recollect it, for you were then Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Things improved for some time, but I regret to say now that within the last few years they have gone back, and it is with pain I say it, that the public hospital which ought to be one of the greatest blessings has become rather a curse in many respects. I could, if your Lordship wished, give you the names and numbers.
Again, my Lord, the lunatic asylum, as I said just now, I believe is a model institution; Dr. Allen, who was sent out by the Commissioners in Lunacy, has done wonders for it, and he deserves every credit possible, but still, my Lord, as with the public hospital there is no supervision at all. The law says that there shall be a Board of Visitors, and until a few months ago, when the Jamaica Association hearing of some irregularities that had occurred addressed Sir William Grey, there was no Board of Visitors for about two or three years.
Another point again, is that there is no definite plan for the construction of the institution. It depends entirely upon the wishes-I had almost said the whims, of Dr. Allen. He is carrying out, as far as possible, the isolation system, but the man who follows him may object to it, and wish to go entirely upon the association system. This is a matter which ought to be looked into; it ought to be fixed how many separate cells there shall be. It is fixed in every asylum in England and on the continent.
The Leper's Home I think your Lordship knows something about. The Leper's House was built at
in a perfect wilderness by the seaside on a sandy soil, where those poor unfortunate people were eaten up with jiggers and mosquitoes, and they had to walk with their bleeding sore feet on the sand. Dr. Milroy, who was sent out, represents those facts, and I understand that a new asylum is to be constructed. The medical gentleman who had the credit of having selected this site, denied in the presence of Dr. Milroy a few years back that he ever selected it, that he had been shocked when he went to see it, and that it was not at all the place which he selected. However, since that, my Lord, a new site has been selected. I hesitate not to say,
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having practised in that immediate spot near Spanish Town for seventeen years, that a more unhealthy spot and a more improper spot could not have been fixed upon. know that it was condemned by the medical officers.
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With regard to lepers, on a previous occasion I expressed my opinion to Lord Kimberley-things there are very bad. The sexes profess to be separated. I paid one visit to Dr. Milroy, and our attention was drawn to the circumstance of a woman being in the family way. We questioned her, and she said, "There is the father,"- a leper. We inquired how it came about, and we were told that the women's apart- ments were inclosed with a fence, but they then let out that they could not keep the men out during the day, nor could they keep them out during the night. We asked them why not? and the reply was, "There are only three of us here, sir, how can we fight all those people." The other day, about two weeks back, I do not know if Lordship saw it, there was an inquest in the Leper's Home on a case of infanticide, the mother and father being in the institution. Those are terrible irregularities, my Lord, and might very easily be prevented. I do not think that there is any report whatsoever published on the Leper's Home, no annual report.
your
The Small-pox Hospitals were dreadful. I felt it my duty to expose the awful state of matters in St. Andrews. The small-pox people were not being seen by medical men-they were put there and the medical officer stood at some distance. At night they were fastened down in tents pinned down, and then left without any attendance whatsoever. My Lord, perhaps you are aware that, this matter has been already treated. I brought my statement forward, and I thought I did it in the most quiet gentlemanly way, and I requested an inquiry into it, but the answer I got was that an inquiry had been held, but that there was no necessity whatsoever for doing anything, that I had been imposed upon, and that I had represented what was not correct. My Lord, I was told so in the public hospital and I was told so in the lunatic asylum. I had to come to England, and I had to sacrifice time and substance to a very large amount, but I proved all that I stated. So again in the small-pox matter his Excellency the Governor wrote to tell me that he was thoroughly satisfied that all I stated was incorrect. By chance, my Lord, I found out that I had made a mistake.
Earl of Carnarvon.-I think we must not go much into details of past corre- spondence. It opens up such a very long story that it would be quite impossible to do it within the time. I am very anxious to hear any new point which the Deputation desire to bring before me, but I think you had better not go into old matters. A good deal of this I remember myself to have seen in the papers.
Mr. Bowerbank.-The printed documents are, or ought to be, in the Colonial Office. The Coolie hospitals are many of them very bad indeed. I believe it has been mentioned to your Lordship lately by others-Mr. Westmoreland and Mr. Bradley-that before they built better institutions for them which will be ready in a very short time the males and females were and are all mixed together.
Now, my Lord, as to the hospital after the Contagious Diseases Bill became law, it says that the Governor shall license the hospital when he is satisfied that provision has been made for religious, moral, and industrial education; but in that institution there is nothing of the kind; there is no training. Lady Barkley's Institution has been done away with altogether. I can assure your Lordship it is a cruel thing. Women now, as it used to be before Lady Barkley was in Jamaica, are confined in the market places and in the streets, and they are taken to the public hospital to their own destruction and the injury of others. The Coolie depôt, my Lord, was an awful place in Kingston. It was a sink-hole of iniquity. It was at last, after a great deal of trouble, done away with, and the one at Spanish Town is not so bad, but it is not perfect.
Now, my Lord, I come to something recent, namely, the Reformatory. A few gentlemen undertook to get up a Male and Female Reformatory, and a law was passed in consequence. It went on and succeeded well, but at last it got so large that it was impossible to continue it. We then petitioned the Governor to take it over, which he did; but ho sent them out of the town without any supervision whatsoever, and after a little time we heard that a peculiarly malignant disease had appeared amongst them; amputation of toes took place in abundance, to the number of 160 at least; limbs were amputated, and deaths took place. The Jamaica Association at last took up the matter and wrote to Sir William Grey, requesting information about it, and his answer was that spilt milk nothing could be done with, but that he was happy to say that the disease had disappeared, and he hoped that byegones would be byegones. At that very time there were eighty-two boys lying in their beds with
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