[ { "id": 204622, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "90\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\n(1878-9 and 1906-7), stands in the street outside the Fong Pin hospital12 telling how it came to be established; and the third, in an old house in Tai Shan Street, commemorates the establishment and repair of a defence office in the 2nd and 10th years of T'ung-chih (1863-4 and 1871-2).\n\nThe three tablets give information about the island population towards the end of the Ch'ing dynasty and, for instance, tell something of the various sections of the community, especially those where local leadership and authority rested; their links with other parts of the San On district and the Kwangtung province; their relations with the district government and other officials, civil and military; and the way in which such local communal needs as a hospital, schools, and a defence corps or local militia were met.\n\nThe nucleus of Cheung Chau society seems always to have been the community of fishermen and shopkeepers, the two being interdependent to a great extent though separated by many basic differences. There has, in addition, always been a farming community, but it has ever taken a third place. A hundred years ago it is likely that the majority of the land dwellers were connected with the island's shops, as proprietors or fokis, and in subsidiary trades and occupations associated with the three main sections of the community. Cheung Chau also served as the market town for over a dozen villages on the central and southwest coast of Lantau, the largest of which was Shek Pik with a population of 363 in 1911, and for the inhabitants of the outer islands. The Fong Pin tablet states that there were two hundred shops in the 1870's, from which it can be deduced that Cheung Chau was a flourishing commercial centre at that time. This is borne out by the house in which the defence association tablet was found, which is long, narrow and surprisingly large, with a small open courtyard in the middle. It has changed very little in the last hundred years, like many other houses in the town which date from this period and before.\n\nIn this urbanized community local power lay with two groups: the members of the WONG Wai Chak Tong*** of Nam Tau and Cheung Chau; and the larger traders and shopkeepers. The two were probably intermingled to some extent, in that some Tong members would be business men, but more investigation", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207892, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 280, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n265 \n\nIn the Colonial Surgeon's report for 1873, he remarks that, \n\nThis 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.* \n\nThese 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. \n\nYear 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. \n\nAt 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\". \n\nThe 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, \n\nthe plague had a good hold, and when they instituted measures to control it, there was strong opposition in the Chinese \n\n* The Hong Kong Government Gazette, 1874 p.158, No. 62. Report of the Colonial Surgeon.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208200, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 239, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n223\n\nsity so many and interesting cases as in these 2 hours in your hospital\". Cancer, sarcoma, psychosis, compound fractures, eye diseases, bone tuberculosis, kidney affections (probably exaggerated by Chinese drugs), the most malicious skin and venereal affections, complications from opium smoking (demanding difficult operations on the urinary tract), infectious diseases, meningitis, malaria, tropical and parasitical sickness, snake bites, elephantiasis and monstrosities have also been treated here.\n\nGenerally speaking we treated one third of all our patients free and one third at reduced fees. On the average the cost of drugs paid by the patient is 19 cents per visit. We have been generously supplied by British drug firms with Sulphanilamide and so have had the means to help with the most advanced scientific methods.\n\nOn the 4th of December 1938 we received our first victims from air raids, the 18th was the next with 10 very bad cases; one boy 10 years old died in the arms of his mother when she brought him in with his back completely torn off. We operated that day and night, and the next day, without pause. We were extremely sorry to lose two more lives; one a girl 14 years old with 10 wounds through her intestines, and a young woman with different large abdominal wounds. Another young woman got a bomb splinter in her face and lost her right eye and 5 teeth. We were able to provide her, after recovering, with an artificial eye and 5 gold teeth, so she looks quite nice again. We also had a mother with several small children who had an open splintered fracture of the lower jaw bone, a 10 inches long wound in the abdomen and a compound fracture of the left heel, also some other smaller wounds, 15 all together. We removed a dozen splinters from the jaw, and to our great joy she recovered and can use her mouth and can walk again normally. We had not only wounded from bombing incidents as the planes very often came down and machine gunned the fishermen in the junks and sampans, or small gunboats approached the coast and fired on the people. An old fisherman with an arm splintered by 5 bullets we were able to release as cured after some months.\n\nIn contrast to a former rather suspicious attitude of the authorities towards a foreign-run hospital is the present appreciation of the civil and army leaders. We have the honour to have the head of the local government now as a member of our Committee of Management.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213035, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "83\n\nestablishment in 1893 of the Nethersole Hospital for women and children, as part of the Alice Hospital, with Mrs. Stevens as Matron. These three steps drew attention to women's health in general, but a maternity service for Chinese women in particular resulted from the support of the Chinese elite and the LMS in the context of public health fears about infant mortality.\n\n4\n\nMrs. Stevens had reported in 1898 that the Alice hospitals did not have enough wards for women. The two beds set aside for maternity cases at the Nethersole Hospital were not only inadequate to meet demand, they were inappropriately placed in the eye ward, where labour was disruptive for general patients, especially when an operation was necessary, and the mothers and other patients were at risk of cross-infection. The number of cases treated had steadily increased to seventeen in 1900. Therefore an Obstetric Bungalow was mooted and a call for public subscription made in 1901. Correspondence notes that funds were only slowly forthcoming, fund-raising limited by the guidelines of the LMS as a mission. For example, the enthusiasm of the wife of the American consul was dampened when the LMS would not agree to fund-raising from a Charity Ball or Theatricals. It took a move from the Chinese establishment and the sanction of government for midwifery training for the plan to materialise.\n\nFor the government, infant mortality was not only a public health risk, a fear heightened at the time of the 1894 plague because of the abandonment of bodies, it also prevented a tidy collecting of demographic statistics. Births and deaths information was of course essential to plan public health services and control contagious and infectious diseases. The problem was that deaths were not recorded and it was only male babies that were registered at the ancestral halls when one month old. In 1896 a Bill recommending the registration of Chinese Midwives' and 'Chinese Doctors' was drafted, but not presented, such regulation being seen as premature.\n\nHowever, it became clear to the government that a Chinese midwifery service which would enable the recording of births was desirable. In 1901, the Medical Officer of Health recommended the payment of a small fee to the Chinese midwife to report the birth, and in 1902 arrangements to train Chinese midwives at the Civil Hospital were made. In 1904, an Inquiry into Chinese Infant Mortality recommended the payment of a fee to the registrant of a birth, and the employment of female visitors to verify", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213081, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "130\n\nTo eradicate this focus of infection, it was resumed by the Government the following year. In the subsequent re-development, the old houses were demolished and replaced by new ones provided with windows, privies and space in front and behind as required by newly enacted legislation. Many other actions were taken to deal with the situation. The whole of Hong Kong was subjected to a thorough cleaning up. The laws related to public health were amended to impose strict measures against the Epidemic, including compulsory reporting and removal of patients. To enforce this, house-to-house search was conducted by British soldiers, against the violent objection of the Chinese community who regarded it as unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of their homes. Additional hospital facilities for the isolation of patients were hastily made and as the epidemic progressed, more had to be opened up from time to time.\n\nWithin the administration, responsibility for the health of Hong Kong was divided between the Sanitary Board and the Colonial Surgeon at that time. The membership of the Sanitary Board was as follows: the Registrar General, the equivalent of a Secretary for Chinese Affairs, as Chairman, the Surveyor General, the equivalent of a Director of Public Works, the Captain Superintendent of Police, the Colonial Surgeon, and five other members. After the Epidemic broke out, a Permanent Committee was appointed to recommend necessary legislation and bye-laws for taking vigorous action. In the post of Colonial Surgeon, the equivalent of the present-day Director of Health, was Dr. P.B.C. Ayres who had held it since 1872. Under him was Dr. J.A. Lowson, whose diary we are going to look into.\n\nJames Alfred Lowson was born in 1866. He graduated from Edinburgh University in medicine in 1888 at the age of 22. He came to Hong Kong, probably in or before 1892, because in October that year he represented Hong Kong at interport cricket in Shanghai. On the return trip, his ship, the S.S. Bokhara, was sunk off the Pescadores in a typhoon. He and one other member of the cricket team were among only twenty-five survivors out of about 150 passengers and crew on board. In 1894, at the age of 28, his posting was medical superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital, at the onset of the Epidemic. At that time, in the medical and health service, there were only three full-time medical officers, Dr. Ayres, Dr. J.M. Atkinson and Dr. Lowson, in that order of seniority, assisted by some private practitioners on a part-time basis. In the March 1st entry of his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213093, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "142\n\nimportance of an unexampled calamity. However in spite of difficulties in balancing the budget, many public works projects were completed during his term. He governed with a liberal-mind for he increased the number of unofficial seats in both the Legislative and the Executive Councils in response to a demand for reforming the government. He also agreed to have an unofficial majority on the Sanitary Board. Generally regarded as an able administrator he stayed for fully six years as Governor, the longest tenure held by any governor thus far. In the history of modern China, he would be remembered as the Governor of Hong Kong who imposed a five-year ban on Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who then went to London and was kidnapped but rescued by Sir James Cantlie but that is another story.\n\nSir James Stewart Lockhart, the main target of Lowson's attack, was Registrar General and acting Colonial Secretary in 1894. There is a biography of him written by Shiona Airlie entitled 'The Thistle and the Bamboo.' He emerged from it as a capable but ambitious man who was eager to seek promotion ahead of his time, and in spite of what Lowson said of him, he got on well with the Chinese. The function of a Registrar General in the early years was to deal with Chinese affairs, not legal matters as at present, in fact, the initial title was Protector of the Chinese. In this office, Lockhart maintained good relations with the directors of Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk and the District Watch Committee, the three main representative bodies of the Chinese community. As to his character, he was said to possess 'humoured geniality which endeared him to his contemporaries' but 'occasionally his patience snapped and from a man considered in the main to be warm-hearted and genial, he became angry and stubborn.' He made at least one important contribution in connection with the Epidemic. After the Resumption of Tai Ping Shan Ordinance was passed, action had to be taken to demolish the old houses. Both landlords and tenants put up a spirited resistance as they both had to suffer financial loss, no rent to be collected by the landlords for sometime and no cheap lodgings for the tenants who were mostly coolies. The coolies threatened to go on strike which would paralyse the city in already very difficult circumstances. Lockhart, who was fluent in Chinese, having been a cadet in the Hong Kong Civil Service, was instrumental in solving the dispute which ended amicably. In 1895, at the age of thirty seven, he became Colonial Secretary when his acting appointment was substantiated. In addition, he was appointed as Special Commissioner for the New Territories in 1897 after the lease was settled. In 1902, he went to Weihaiwei as its first Civil Commissioner. On his departure the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215532, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 309, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "259\n\n2. Hong Kong No.2A, piece of Botanical and Forestry Department ground at the junction of Kennedy Road and Garden Road 163\n\n3. Hong Kong No.2B, piece of Botanical and Forestry Department ground at junction of Upper Albert Road and Albany Road, 164\n\n4. Old Government Civil Hospital Site 165 (2,631), open space behind the Old Government Civil Hospital. 166\n\n5. Queen Mary Hospital Site (101), piece of ground on the east side of Pokfulam Road near the Maison de Nazareth. 167\n\n6. Aberdeen Site (98), on the north side of Island Road, 100 yards from the Aberdeen Industrial School, 169\n\n7. Island Road, 170 Shaukiwan Site (363), slopes on side of Island Road near its junction with Shaukiwan Road. 171\n\nFigures in bracket show the number of grave exhumations for reburial between April 1948 and March 1949. 172 The remains in these emergency cemeteries were reburied in the New Kowloon Cemetery No.8 (Diamond Hill Urn Cemetery).\n\nEarly Post-War Cemeteries\n\nThe first cemetery authorized after the Second World War in 1947 was a military cemetery for the burial of the servicemen who had died in the war. It was initially known as the 'Sai Wan Military Cemetery,' 173 which contained about 5.71 acres, situated East of Chai Wan Cemetery 174 and the extension thereof and to the North of the road serving Sai Wan and Cape Collinson in the Colony of Hong Kong.' 175\n\nThis was followed by a 'Prisons Cemetery' in the same year, which was 'being an enclosure of about 5,000 square feet lying 250 yards to the South of St. Stephen's College Preparatory School Building at Stanley,' 176\n\nIt was recorded that as early as 1940, the government had already intended to transfer the government cemeteries for Chinese from the urban area to new sites in the New Territories. However, due to the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215648, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 425, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "377\n\ninscription. The ivory canister is accompanied by a book to which one refers to read one's fortune. In Cantonese, this method of fortune telling is called Cow Tsim\n\n3. A copy of the Hong Kong Telegraph Pictorial Supplement dated 2nd June, 1934. It includes a group photograph of staff and pupils of the Peak School among who is Douglas Franklin's sister - Sylvia. Other photographs in the supplement include the construction of the Shing Mun dam, the latest fashion and high society of the day\n\n4. Photograph taken some time before Mr Frederick Franklin's wedding in 1925. Mrs Franklin had been a nursing sister employed at the Government Civil Hospital in Western District. She originated from Scotland\n\n5. The old Peak Church, taken in 1925, where Frederick Franklin and his bride were married\n\n6. Saint John's Cathedral Choir, on the steps of the Cenotaph in Statue Square, taken at the Armistice Service in 1938. The statue of Queen Victoria, under the canopy, is in the background. The Cenotaph is a smaller version of the one in Whitehall, London\n\n7. Christmas Fancy Dress Party at the Peak Hotel, 1924. The hotel was demolished after World War Two\n\n8. Snapshot of Mr Franklin senior with Sir Robert Ho Tung, one of Hong Kong's most famous sons. Robert Ho Tung died in 1956. Although Eurasian he normally wore Chinese clothes\n\n9. Snapshot taken in 1924 of Frederick Franklin and the lady who later became his wife, together with a friend in front of a matshed at Repulse Bay. The three are in \"whites\" and, apart from pith helmets, the two men are dressed very much as we dressed in the 1950s and '60s. Mr Franklin was wearing shorts and knee-length socks and his male companion was wearing a Saigon linen wet-wash suit\n\n10. Another snapshot taken in 1924; again, all three are wearing similar attire. Father sits on the running board of the car, which is definitely 1920s vintage", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]