Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 287

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Report of the Ophthalmic Hospital.

MAY,

king, has sent to his old friend and physician for professional advice. And his successor, in office, Sü Kwáng-tsin, with all his national prejudice, and policy hostile to foreigners, on a public occasion, made honorable and complimentary allusion to this Institution. Persons from the offices of the high provincial dignitaries, the Governor-ge- neral, the general of the Manchus aud others, have availed of the be- nefits of the Hospital. Patients have been received from different and distant provinces of the Empire, and in one instance, as will be seen, a gentleman came a journey of two months from Chehkiáng to obtain surgical aid. An impression has obtained in some instances, among foreigners, that the Chinese are ungrateful; to correct that impression, as well as to illustrate character and sentiment, the report will be illustrated with translations of scrolls and tablets presented by various patients. A notice of the religious exercises, and the wide distribution of Christian books, will be found in the conclusion.

The nature of some of the cases, in the view of the general reader, might consign them to journals designed exclusively for professional men, but the report would be incomplete without them, and it is ap- prehended, no well informed mind will suffer from their perusal. For convenience of reference, the number of each case as it stands on the records of the Institution is inserted.

Escape of an Intestinal Worm from the side, and perfect recovery. Early in 1848 I was called to see at the Lungkí Hong, a lady up- wards of forty years of age, a near relative of Cháng Tien-tsiuen ("Young Tingqua"), one of the principal Chinese merchants. No des- cription can convey an adequate idea of her pitiable condition. The skin and cellular tissue over the left iliac region, for a space of six or eight inches in diameter, had sloughed away, leaving the muscles and the spine of the ilium exposed; extensive ulceration and sloughing had taken place along the spine. At one point, about midway, in a line drawn from the umbilicus to the crest of the ilium, the abdominal muscles were perforated by the disease, and that a portion of the con- tents of the bowel escaped through an aperture, like an artificial anus, was apparent to more of the senses than one.

In view of the condition of the patient, her feeble pulse, emaciated frame, and the extent of the external ulceration and sloughing, the most unfavorable prognosis was pronounced, and the friends were assured that to palliate the symptoms, and render her remaining days as com- fortable as practicable was all that could be promised. They readily concurred in this opinion, but desired whatever was possible to