14. The number of cases of venereal disease admitted to the hospitals continues to increase, and I would again express a hope that before long the Colony will be allowed to take measures for dealing with this disease in some effective manner.
43
2. In that Colony the main provisions of the C. D. O. were repealed in 1888, leaving only to the Government the right of registration and the inspection of houses of ill fame; but in 1894 (Women and Girls' Protection Ordinance Amendment Bill) this right was withdrawn, and since then there have been no inspection or control exercised beyond what is provided for by the common law.
3. The repeal of these ordinances was in obedience to the course resolved upon in this country and under the peremptory orders of the Colonial Office. But this was done against the protests of the Local Government, of the non-official members of Council, of the officers of Her Majesty's Forces, of the Medical Staff (Civil and Military), and of the general public of the Straits Settlements.
4.
The results of the policy thus forced upon the Colony without due allowance for the widely different conditions of life in England and the Far East have been, as was anticipated, most disastrous. But it is only recently that the appalling facts have become fully known through the investigations of a competent and trustworthy local committee of this Association, the result of whose labours I am instructed to lay before
you.
5. The investigation was confined exclusively to Singapore. No attempt was made to include the sister Settlements of Penang and Malacca, but as their conditions are not dissimilar to those existing at Singapore, it may fairly be assumed that the broad facts of the one are applicable to all the Settlements. Nor has it been possible to asccr- tain the proportion of disease in the civil community at large, but the statistics which are available of certain classes, limited though they must necessarily be, are of the most instructive and representative character.
6. First, as regards the Military Forces of the Colony, the following figures show the state of venereal disease among the troops in the Tanglin District of Singapore, under the Contagious Diseases Ordinance and since its repeal:-
Table "A" represents five years under the Act. Table "B"
represents five
years
since the repeal of the Act.
TABLE A.
No. of Admissions.
Period.
Strength Troops.
Total.
Ratio per Mille.
Prim. Syph.
Secy, Syph.
Gonorrhoea.
1884
551
25.
1885
639
13
1886
673
10
1887
576
34
43
****
5
38
.68
123.41
11
28
52
81.38
5
82
47
69-84
16
93
161-46
1888
639
25
30
129
184
287-95
Total 5 years 3,078
107
94
243
444
144.81
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
LIC.O. 882
π π | | | | | | | | |
24245.
SIR,
*
*
I have, &c.,
C. B. H. MITCHELL.
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.
No. 19.
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS ASSOCIATION to COLONIAL OFFICE.
(Received November 10, 1897.)
5, Whittington Avenue, E.C., November 8, 1897.
THE discussions which have taken place as to the effects of the repeal of what are known as the Contagious Diseases Acts, and the necessity which has arisen in India for the resumption of precautionary measures, have been followed with great interest by the people of the Straits Settlements.
Longest detention 102 days.
* Daily average detention 5 days. ↑ Daily average 441. Longest stay 86 days.
Daily average 4:33 Longest stay 123 days.
Daily average 4:21. Longest stay 60 days.
During 5 months.
TABLE B.
No. of Admissions.
Period.
Strength Troops.
Total.
Batio per Mille.
Prim. Syph.
Seoy. Syph.
Gonorrhoea
1892
647
82
41
91
214
330-76
1893
618
65
50
49
164
265.37
1894
748
100
70
92
262
348-93
1895
753
211
101
133
465
617-53
1896
728
134
143
136
413
567.30
Total 5 years 3,494
592
405
321
1,518
434-17
During five years when the C. D. O. was in operation, out of an average of 615.6 men in the Tanglin Barracks there were admissions to hospital for contagious disease averaging 144.28 per mille. During the last five years (protective legislation being
1817
FI
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6 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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