1877 — Page 272

The Superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital to the Colonial Surgeon.

GOVERNMENT CIVIL HOSPITAL,

HONGKONG 10th April, 1878.

SIR, I have the honour to forward the report on the Civil Hospital for the year 1877, with the tables of statistics pertaining thereto.

In November the Hospital completed its third year of occupation of the three houses in Hollywood Road, Nos. 2, 4 and 6, in which it took refuge after the typhoon of 1874.

The occupation of these buildings continues to be unsatisfactory, as their more complete adaptation to Hospital purposes is said to be inadvisable, because the occupation is only temporary, and it is not worth while to incur further expense for improvements.

There is but limited room for patients, nurses, stores, kitchens, or for any of the conveniences which are looked upon as necessities in a well ordered Hospital.

On the 1st January, 1877, a slight alteration was made in the staff of the Hospital, the Senior Wardmaster, Mr. J. EDGAR, being relieved from his ward duties to become Clerk, Steward and Storekeeper. He performed these duties till the end of July, when he left the service. He was succeeded by Mr. J. C. DE SENNA, who continued all the duties till the end of the year; the salary of a Chinese Clerk then having been passed in the Estimates, this much needed addition to the Establishment was obtained, and Mr. SENNA is now able to devote his whole attention to the stores and provisions.

With regard to the Hospital work, the Register for the year records 950 cases: 31 of these however, comprising superficial wounds, three cases of dog-bite, and one of opium-poisoning, were treated in the Surgery and then dismissed; 20 others were admitted moribund from injury or discase, and died within a short period of their admission.

There were thus 899 patients admitted during the year, who underwent treatment in the Hospital. (No reference is here made to the number [31] remaining in Hospital on the 31st December, 1876.)

418 of these were Policemen, and 481 were seamen, private residents, destitutes, prisoners, members of the Chinese Customs and Revenue Services, and officers and seamen from foreign ships-of-war.

The total number of admissions from the Police Force is in excess of the preceding year. The Europeans number only 84 admissions as compared with 106 in 1876: but this diminution is counterbalanced by an increase of 21 from the Indians and 9 from the Chinese.

A reference to the tables will show the number admitted in each month from the different stations. Their diseases were principally intestinal and bronchitic affections with febrile attacks and surgical injuries.

The increase of sickness among the l'olice is due to the unhealthiness and overcrowding of some of the Police Stations, the unhealthiness being due equally to situation and to defects of construction.

These defects were in various instances made conspicuous by the number of sick coming to Hos- pital from certain Stations, notably the Police Hulk and Tsim-tsa-taui, and these two with No. 3 Station at Wán-tsai were made the subject of special representations to the Government.

The total number of days spent in Hospital in 1877 by members of the Force was 3,391, and this may be more than doubled by adding the number of days spent on sick leave by Constables after their discharge from Hospital. This is equivalent to nineteen men off duty for the whole year.

The admissions from foreign ships-of-war were not so numerous in 1877, as most of their sick were taken into the Naval Hospital. On several occasions, however, there were no vacant beds there, so accommodation had to be found for them in the Civil Hospital.

Table V. shows the varieties of disease with the mortality from each.

Fevers form a large item in the list, but there was only one fatal case, in a Chinese Constable from the Police Hulk. Some of these febrile attacks were severe, but a large number were comparatively trivial. Quinine, baths, and careful nursing were relied on for the treatment of these cases, and the results have been satisfactory.

One case of typhoid fever (which is said never to occur in China) was treated in January. The subject was a Chinese Police Sergeant who lived in an old house next door to the Hospital, and it is worthy of note that in the same month a European Constable living in another part of the same house suffered from carbuncular abscess of the thigh. All the sinks about these houses were untrapped and there was a very foul latrine, immediately adjoining.

The possibility of these two cases having had a common origin here suggests itself, and second- arily the question of the origin of typhoid fever de novo, which is disputed by some authorities.