C 10
# CHINESE PUBLIC DISPENSARIES AND DISTRICT PLAQUE HOSPITALS.
(Tables XV to XVII.)
The dispensaries continue to be conducted on the established lines. The three dispensaries in Victoria and the Harbour Dispensary are managed by a Committee consisting of the Registrar General as Chairman, the Hon. Dr. Ho Kai, C.M.G., Vice-Chairman, and seventeen other members, and the same Committee has opened a dispensary at Shaukiwan. The constitution and general objects of the Association have to receive the concurrence and sanction of the Government, and are described in a minute dated the 20th October, 1909, in 9262/07 C.S.O. The three dispensaries at Yaumati, Hunghom and Kowloon City, are managed by separate Committees elected by the inhabitants, and in his work of guiding and controlling them the Registrar General is assisted by the two Chinese Members of Council and the two Members of the Sanitary Board. To enable the Registrar General to keep in close touch with the Chinese in matters relating to sanitation, Street Committees have been appointed by the Government, and are consulted on matters of importance and encouraged to ask advice. Attached to each dispensary in Victoria are a licentiate of the Hongkong College of Medicine, a clerk with a knowledge of English and coolies with ambulances and dead-vans to remove patients and dead bodies. Two lecturers are maintained whose duty it is to preach against "dumping of bodies in the streets, to point out the benefits to be derived from the dispensaries, and to explain the object of the sanitary laws; handbills are issued in profusion whenever occasion demands, and photographs are taken of bodies found in the streets and are posted up in the neighbourhood, and enquiries are made in each case from the Street Committee. There is a District Plague Hospital attached to the West Point Dispensary in Victoria, another in Kowloon City and a third at Hunghom. A fourth hospital is built at Wanchai. The number of rats caught during the year in Victoria was 56,921, and in the Kowloon Peninsula where rat-catchers have been engaged by the dispensaries and paid by the Sanitary Department the number was 21,257.
Shaukiwan is much frequented by fishing boats and has a large stationary water-population. The subscriptions from the boat-population there were found to be large enough to justify the medical licentiate in charge of the Harbour Dispensary boat in Causeway Bay being directed to visit Shaukiwan as well. A local committee was formed, and a dispensary opened on the 26th July. The dispensary proved immediately useful, as the statistics given in Table XV show, and the committee take a keen interest in the work. The licentiate now visits Shaukiwan in the mornings, and Causeway Bay in the afternoons. A qualified dispenser is on duty all day at Causeway Bay.
Anyone interested in the spread of a belief in European medicine among the Chinese will be pleased to learn that the percentage of return cases to new cases treated at the Victoria Dispensaries has risen from 30 in 1908 to 37 in 1909 and finally to 57 in 1910. In Kowloon City the percentage remains about the same, at Yaumati it has dropped, but there is a very satisfactory increase at Hunghom from 8 in 1908 to 15 in 1910,
C 10
CHINESE PUBLIC DISPENSARIES AND DISTRICT PLACUE HOSPITALS.
(Tables XV to XVII.)
The dispensaries continue to be conducted on the established lines. The three dispensaries in Victoria and the Harbour Dis- pensary are managed by a Committee consisting of the Registrar General as Chairman, the Hon. Dr. Ho Kai, c.M.G., Vice-Chairman, and seventeen other members, and the same Committee has opened a dispensary at Shaukiwan. The constitution and general objects of the Association have to receive the concurrence and sanction of the Government, and are described in a minute dated the 20th October, 1909, in 9262/07 C.S.O. The three dispensaries at Yaumati, Hunghom and Kowloon City, are managed by separate Committees elected by the inhabitants, and in his work of guiding and controlling them the Registrar General is assisted by the two Chinese Members of Council and the two Members of the Sanitary Board. To enable the Registrar General to keep in close touch with the Chinese in matters relating to sanitation, Street Committees have been appointed by the Government, and are consulted on matters of importance and encouraged to ask advice. Attached to each dispensary in Victoria are a licentiate of the Hongkong College of Medicine, a clerk with a knowledge of English and coolies with ambulances and dead-vans to remove patients and dead bodies. Two lecturers are maintained whose duty it is to preach against "dumping of bodies in the streets, to point out the benefits to be derived from the dispensaries, and to explain the object of the sanitary laws; hand- bills are issued in profusion whenever occasion demands, and photographs are taken of bodies found in the streets and are posted up in the neighbourhood, and enquiries are made in each case from the Street Committee. There is a District Plague Hospital attached to the West Point Dispensary in Victoria, another in Kowloon City and a third at Hunghom. A fourth hospital is built at Wanchai. The number of rats caught during the year in Victoria was 56,921, and in the Kowloon Peninsula where rat-catchers have been engaged by the dispensaries and paid by the Sanitary Department the number was 21,257.
Shaukiwan is much frequented by fishing boats and has a large stationary water-population. The subscriptions from the boat-popu- lation there were found to be large enough to justify the medical licentiate in charge of the Harbour Dispensary boat in Causeway Bay being directed to visit Shaukiwan as well. A local committee was formed, and a dispensary opened on the 26th July. The dispensary proved immediately useful, as the statistics given in Table XV shew, and the committee take a keen interest in the work. The licentiate now visits Shaukiwan in the mornings, and Causeway Bay in the afternoons. A qualified dispenser is on duty all day at Causeway Bay.
Anyone interested in the spread of a belief in European medicine among the Chinese will be pleased to learn that the percentage of of return cases to new cases treated at the Victoria Dispensaries has risen from 30 in 1908 to 37 in 1909 and finally to 57 in 1910. In Kowloon City the percentage remains about the same, at Yaumati it has dropped, but there is a very satisfactory increase at Hunghom from 8 in 1908 to 15 in 1910,
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