7 The number of admissions from the Police Force was large, and might be reduced if more attention were paid to Sanitary requirements in the housing of the men. The Police Hulk is especially unwholesome, and productive of one of the worst forms of fever among the Chinese Constables. In the latter part of the year Whitfield Station became remarkable for the number and severity of the cases of remittent fever sent to Hospital. This is probably to be attributed, at least in part, to the construction of the new breakwater in the neighbourhood, with the accumulation of filth from the boats behind it.
8. No. 3 Station, old and badly built, contributes occasional cases of diphtheritic sore throat. 9. I may here call attention to the objectionable practice in the Hongkong Police Stations of providing continuous benches for the sleeping accommodation of the Chinese Constables It affords facilities for overcrowding, and on that and other grounds is objectionable.
10 The sickness among the Police was chiefly diarrhoea, febrile attacks, bronchial catarrh, and surgical injuries. One Indian Constable was admitted to Hospital suffering from corns and abrasions of one foot He had been accustomed to go barefoot at home, and was quite disabled by the thick hard leather boots served out to him when he joined the Police in Hongkong. It might be as well to allow these men to wear canvas shoes, either black or white.
11. The total number of days spent in Hospital in 1882 by members of the Force was 5,607, in 1881 it was 6,134.
12 The admissions from foreign ships of war were 12 in number: one officer and two seamen from the French vessels, one officer and six seamen from the Russian fleet, and two seamen of the American Navy.
13. Table V shows the varieties of disease among the patients generally, with the mortality from each.
14 A comparison of the relative frequency of the different diseases in this list with that of 1881 would be of little value, as so much depends upon the amount of time and attention given to the diagnosis in each case, and with several changes in the Acting Superintendents, there is no common ground of comparison.
15 There were more venereal cases in 1882 than in the preceding year, as many as 25 being in Hospital at once, but some of them were brought into the Colony Nagasaki seems to be especially dangerous in this respect.
16. In a number of cases the disease was said to have been contracted from Hongkong boat-women. 17. The law regarding detention in Hospital of seamen affected with venereal disease is somewhat anomalous. It compels infected seamen who have taken up their residence in a licensed boarding house to come to Hospital, and to stay there until cured, whereas if they are destitute and thrown on the streets they may scatter disease broadcast without let or hindrance.
18. Some of these cases apply and are received into Hospital as destitutes, but they are often turbulent and troublesome, and insist on leaving before they are cured.
19 There were 68 deaths during the year, which is not a large number, but some of the severest cases of injury and disease among the Chinese are usually removed by their friends to die at home.
20 The number of dead bodies sent to the Hospital, there being no public mortuary, was 198; of which 7 were European adults, 113 Chinese adults, and 78 Chinese children.
21 I believe a public mortuary will be built one of these days, and it will probably have connected with it a post-mortem room, as well as a Coroner's Court, waiting rooms for witnesses, &c.
22. When this comes to pass, the Hospital will be freed from the offensive exhalations from bodies in all stages of decomposition, as well as from the noise and bustle of the Coroner's Court, and the melancholy sight and sounds of continually passing funerals.
23 In Table V six cases of parturition are recorded, in two of which the mother died. The fate of the off-spring is not recorded, but most of them, if not all, were born dead. I have in previous reports alluded to the fact that, in cases of difficult labour among the Chinese, the lives of both mother and child are invariably sacrificed unless European aid is called in. The Chinese so-called doctors know nothing of anatomy, and they admit their utter ignorance of the mechanism of child-birth, and their consequent powerlessness to render aid to parturient women.
24 This is a matter which deserves more attention than it has received, for with the increase of the Chinese population the deaths in child-bed are likely to be more numerous year by year.
25 Last November it was suggested to the Government that a small lying-in Hospital should be provided, and it was stated that the Directors of the Tung Wa Hospital were prepared to remunerate a Medical Officer for attendance on these cases. This proposition fell to the ground, and nothing came of it beyond an undertaking by the Surveyor General to provide a lying-in ward in the new Civil Hospital when built The new Civil Hospital, however, is to be built according to the plans approved by the Secretary of State in 1879, and as these plans only provide about of the accommodation required for the present establishment, it is difficult to understand where the lying-in ward will be. Perhaps a more feasible scheme would be for the Directors of the Tung Wa Hospital to provide a lying-in ward for poor Chinese, and to call in European assistance when necessary.
7 The number of admissions from the Police Force was large, and might be reduced if more attention were paid to Sanitary requirements in the housing of the men. The Police Hulk is especially unwholesome, and productive of one of the worst forms of fever among the Chinese Constables. In the latter part of the year Whitfield Station became remarkable for the number and severity of the cases of remittent fever sent to Hospital. This is probably to be attributed, at least in part, to the construction of the new breakwater in the neighbourhood, with the accumulation of filth from
the boats behind it.
8. No. 3 Station, old and badly built, contributes occasional cases of diphtheritic sore throat. 9. I may here call attention to the objectionable practice in the Hongkong Police Stations of providing continuous benches for the sleeping accommodation of the Chinese Constables It affords facilities for overcrowding, and on that and other grounds is objectionable.
10 The sickness among the Police was chiefly diarrhoea, febrile attacks, bronchial catarrh, and surgical injuries. One Indian Constable was admitted to Hospital suffering from corns and abrasions of one foot He had been accustomed to go barefoot at home, and was quite disabled by the thick hard leather boots served out to him when he joined the Police in Hongkong. It might be as well to allow these men to wear canvas shoes, either black or white.
11. The total number of days spent in Hospital in 1882 by members of the Force was 5,607, in 1881 it was 6,134.
12 The admissions from foreign ships of war were 12 in number: one officer and two seamen from the French vessels, one officer and six seamen from the Russian fleet, and two seamen of the American Navy
13. Table V shows the varieties of disease among the patients generally, with the mortality from each.
14 A comparison of the relative frequency of the different diseases in this list with that of 1881 would be of little value, as so much depends upon the amount of time and attention given to the diagnosis in each case, and with several changes in the Acting Superintendents, there is no common ground of comparison.
15 There were more venereal cases in 1882 than in the preceding year, as many as 25 being in Hospital at once, but some of them were brought into the Colony Nagasaki seems to be especially dangerous in this respect.
16. In a number of cases the disease was said to have been contracted from Hongkong boat-women. 17. The law regarding detention in Hospital of seamen affected with venereal disease is somewhat anomalous. It compels infected seamen who have taken up their residence in a licensed boarding house to come to Hospital, and to stay there until cured, whereas if they are destitute and thrown on the streets they may scatter disease broadcast without let or hindrance.
18. Some of these cases apply and are received into Hospital as destitutes, but they are often turbulent and troublesome, and insist on leaving before they are cured.
19 There were 68 deaths during the year, which is not a large number, but some of the severest cases of injury and disease among the Chinese are usually removed by their friends to die at home.
20 The number of dead bodies sent to the Hospital, there being no public mortuary, was 198; of which 7 were European adults, 113 Chinese adults, and 78 Chinese children.
21 I believe a public mortuary will be built one of these days, and it will probably have connected with it a post-mortem room, as well as a Coroner's Court, waiting rooms for witnesses, &c.
22. When this comes to pass, the Hospital will be freed from the offensive exhalations from bodies in all stages of decomposition, as well as from the noise and bustle of the Coroner's Court, and the melancholy sight and sounds of continually passing funerals.
23 In Table V six cases of parturition are recorded, in two of which the mother died. The fate of the off-spring is not recorded, but most of them, if not all, were born dead. I have in previous reports alluded to the fact that, in cases of difficult labour among the Chinese, the lives of both mother and child are invariably sacrificed unless European aid is called in. The Chinese so-called doctors know nothing of anatomy, and they admit their utter ignorance of the mechanism of child-birth, and their consequent powerlessness to render aid to parturient women
24 This is a matter which deserves more attention than it has received, for with the increase of the Chinese population the deaths in child-bed are likely to be more numerous year by year.
25 Last November it was suggested to the Government that a small lying-in Hospital should be provided, and it was stated that the Directors of the Tung Wa Hospital were prepared to remunerate à Medical Officer for attendance on these cases. This proposition fell to the ground, and nothing came of it beyond an undertaking by the Surveyor General to provide a lying-in ward in the new Civil Hospital when built The new Civil Hospital, however, is to be built according to the plans approved by the Secretary of State in 1879, and as these plans only provide about of the accommodation required for the present establishment, it is difficult to understand where the lying-in ward will be. Perhaps a more feasible scheme would be for the Directors of the Tung Wa Hospital to provide a lying-in ward for poor Chinese, and to call in European assistance when necessary.
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