Sessional_Paper_1885-1886 — Page 291

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There certainly was nothing epidemic in the character of the disease. All the cases occurred at the time the stone fruit comes into the Colony, none of it being grown here. Mangoes, peaches, plums, laichees, &c., &c., all brought from a distance, all plucked in an unripe condition, a great deal of it sold in an unwholesome condition of unripeness or putrefaction. Then the small number of cases regis- tered compared with the whole community and those only of the poorest class is to be taken into. account and the majority of the Military who died being temperance men. I think this out-break may be attributed to unwholesome fruit more than anything else, which in the case of the Military might have been rendered more innocuous if a small amount of stimulants had been taken.

The largest number of deaths from diarrhoea among the Chinese was in 1878, 701; there was not the slightest suspicion of cholera then. This year the diarrhoea, cholera, and vomiting and purging cases, all included, amounted to 744. The population in 1878 was estimated at 139,144 and in 1885 at 175,995.

Nevertheless, epidemic or not, there is no doubt at all that many cases of diarrhoea have shewn as a very bad type, terminating in a discharge of choleraic character, and so it behoves us to take all the precautions we can to render the City of Victoria and the surrounding villages fitter to resist diseases of this character by better sanitation.

The totals on these Tables show that the Colony has been pretty steadily going from bad to worse as far as the Chinese are concerned.

Since 1873 any number of wells have been closed that, though in the heart of the town, had fair water in them that year. Now year after year more have to be closed showing that the subsoil is steadily being poisoned by sewage. It is very little use the Government laying down proper main drains if proper house drains are not connected with them, and house sewage is allowed to drain into the subsoil. It is not surprising that it takes a good deal of trouble to make Chinese house owners under- stand this, but it is surprising the amount of trouble it takes European house owners to understand it, or if they do, to make them act upon the knowledge.

So we may annually expect worse and worse scares as each summer season approaches, till these matters are remedied. An immense deal of fuss has been made about Quarantine. What we have got to do is to look at home, and not prepare a hotbed for the reception of disease, as a gardener does for mushrooms.

Quarantine has been reduced to three days at this Port, the Military and Naval Authorities object- ing to the Home practice. For myself I consider that it is impossible for Quarantine to be of the slightest service to us, and it cannot in any case be properly enforced. Enforced on the

Enforced on the very strictest principles, it did no good for Mauritius, for an epidemic of cholera carried off a third of the Island. It has not done any good for the Philippines, and if these places, with a Quarantine of 21 days, isolated as they are by wide oceans from the cholera districts of the mainland, derive so little benefit from Quarantine, what good can we expect from it? The only thing we can do is to segregate the patients brought in, and disinfect the vessels.

Quarantine Hospital accommodation is being got ready on Stone Cutters' Island but there is some- thing else that the Government must take into consideration. To be of any use, a Surgeon will have to be provided. Every Medical Officer on the Civil Medical Staff has his hands full and sometimes more than full during the summer or cholera season. Military Surgeons are not always to be had, and no provision is made in case any of the is staff sick. We are all of us in the same boat, and the case of the Superintendent of the Civil Hospital is not an exception to the general rule. As far as the Medical Staff is concerned, no man in the service can relieve one of us and we cannot relieve one another as formerly. The work now being done by each is fully one man's work and at times a little more.

To the Honourable

F. STEWARD, LL.D.,

Acting Colonial Secretary,

$r..

3.c..

&c.

I have the honour to be.

Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

Pu. B. C. AYRES.

Colonial Surgeon,