NOTES AND QUERIES
265
In the Colonial Surgeon's report for 1873, he remarks that,
This Institution at present hardly deserves the name of Hospital, in the ordinary acceptance of the word. It does good as a refuge of the destitute ... and in time when their inveterate dislike of European improvements is overcome, may do much more good than it can now.*
These criticisms were soon picked up by the local English press. They indicate the difficulties the European had in recognizing any values in the traditional methods of Chinese medical practice.
Year after year in newspaper editorials, letters to the editor and the annual medical reports of the Colonial Surgeon there was pressure for the introduction of western medical treatment. The Chinese replied that the population had no desire to expose themselves to any type of medical care than that to which they were accustomed. They had a strong dread of western medical practice and tried to avoid at all costs the fate of being sent to the Government Civil Hospital where they would be subjected to the attentions of a western trained doctor. In refutation of this claim, a newspaper editorial pointed to the example of the Medical Missionary Hospital at Canton under the supervision of Dr. Kerr, which treated some tens of thousands of patients—many more than passed through Tung Wah in its early years. The editor claimed that of their own free will the people of Kwangtung flocked to Dr. Kerr's Hospital to be treated according to western medical methods. I shall make no effort to delineate the argument further, only to suggest that each side may have had its points.
At any rate the argument dragged on through the years: the European segment of the population regarding the Tung Wah of those days as little more than an institution similar to an English workhouse for the destitute, where, as the Colonial Surgeon commented in 1874, "the patients get good food and, according to Chinese ideas, very comfortable accommodations".
The issue reached a crisis when the bubonic plague hit Hong Kong in 1894. It was a week or so before a number of cases of death diagnosed by Chinese doctors simply as "fever" were recognized as the plague. By the time the medical authorities were aware of its presence,
the plague had a good hold, and when they instituted measures to control it, there was strong opposition in the Chinese
* The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 1874 p.158, No. 62. Report of the Colonial Surgeon.
NOTES AND QUERIES
265
In the Colonial Surgeon's report for 1873, he remarks that,
This Institution at present hardly deserves the name of Hospital, in the ordinary acceptance of the word. It does good as a refuge of the destitute . . . and in time when their inveterate dislike of European improvements is overcome, may do much more good than it can now.*
These criticisms were soon picked up by the local English press. They indicate the difficulties the European had in recognizing any values in the traditional methods of Chinese medical practice.
Year after year in newspaper editorials, letters to the editor and the annual medical reports of the Colonial Surgeon there was pres- sure for the introduction of western medical treatment. The Chinese replied that the population had no desire to expose themselves to any type of medical care than that to which they were accustomed. They had a strong dread of western medical practice and tried to avoid at all costs the fate of being sent to the Government Civil Hospital where they would be subjected to the attentions of a western trained doctor. In refutation of this claim, a newspaper editorial pointed to the example of the Medical Missionary Hospital at Canton under the supervision of Dr. Kerr, which treated some tens of thousands of patients-many more than passed through Tung Wah in its early years. The editor claimed that of their own free will the people of Kwangtung flocked to Dr. Kerr's Hospital to be treated according to western medical methods. I shall make no effort to delineate the argument further, only to suggest that each side may have had its points.
At any rate the argument dragged on through the years: the European segment of the population regarding the Tung Wah of those days as little more than an institution similar to an English workhouse for the destitute, where, as the Colonial Surgeon com. mented in 1874, "the patients get good food and, according to Chinese ideas, very comfortable accommodations".
The issue reached a crisis when the bubonic plague hit Hong Kong in 1894. It was a week or so before a number of cases of death diagnosed by Chinese doctors simply as "fever" were recog- nized as the plague. By the time the medical authorities were aware of its presence,
the plague had a good hold, and when they instituted measures to control it, there was strong opposition in the Chinese
* The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 1874 p.158, No. 62. Report of the Colonial Surgeon.
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