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66. Seven Chinese women in labour were brought to the Hospital for assistance: they had all been in labour for several days and required instrumental aid. Three of them died.
67. Some of these cases are hopeless when they arrive, from having delayed too long, and there is, moreover, considerable risk to the patients in treating such cases in a General Hospital. Their only alternative however is to remain at home in the hands of their wise women, which means certain death to them and their offspring.
68. The Tung Wa Hospital might be expected to render assistance in such cases but the so-called doctors there know no more than the sages-femmes.
69. Thirteen seamen were treated for scurvy; some of them being severely affected. They were mostly from American ships which had made a long passage round the Horn. Eleven cases were admitted in 1884.
70. Thirty-seven patients were admitted with abscesses in various parts of the body.
71. Thirty-two cases of debility were received in which no special symptoms were observed.
72. Seventeen admissions were set down to privation as the exciting cause of the mischief present. 73. Twenty-five cases of alcoholism and alcoholic poisoning were recorded and six of delirium
tremens.
74. In the present Hospital buildings, permanent and temporary, there is no accommodation for these cases, and not only do they disturb the other patients, but there is always a risk of their breaking away from their attendants and throwing themselves over the verandahs.
75. Cardiac, bronchial, and pulmonary complaints contributed their usual percentage.
76. Among the last was an interesting case of quinine blindness. The chief engineer of a steamer lying at Shanghai fell into the water (temperature of air below 32° F.), and had an attack of pneumo- nia. His fever was treated on board with large doses of quinine and he became deaf for a short time; his hearing then returned and he suddenly lost his sight entirely. His pneumonia passed away and he made a good recovery, but there was little change in his eyes up to the time of his leaving for England, eighteen days after his admission to Hospital.
77. The usual quota of hepatic affections underwent treatment.
78. The poisoning cases comprised 4 of opium, 1 of Belladonna, 1 of lead, and 3 of datura. All recovered except the Belladonna case.
79. Dogbites were numerous, no fewer than 11 persons bitten were treated in Hospital, and others had their wounds dressed in the surgery.
80. Wounds of all kinds and fractures figure largely in the list as usual.
81. Seventy-six deaths occurred in Hospital during the year. Some of the hopeless cases among
the Chinese are removed by relatives to die at home.
82. The receipts from patients in 1885 amounted to $6,653.74: of this $1,618.50 was derived from the Board of Trade, and $690.87 from the Police.
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83. In 1884 the receipts were $7,144.45: of which $1,675.75 was from the Board of Trade, and $837.42 from the Police.
84. The visitation of the Hospital by Justices of the Peace, in abeyance for some years past, was resumed in June, 1885.
85. It is a great advantage to the Staff to know that some interest is taken in their work and the Buildings are now kept in a much better state of repair.
86. The washing of the bedding and clothing formerly done at the Gaol is now done at the Steam- Laundry, with much better results.
87. When the remainder of the Hospital is built, it will perhaps contain a disinfecting chamber; nothing of the sort exists at present.
88. It is sufficiently obvious that the foregoing report is almost entirely administrative, the merest glimpse being given of the Medical work of the Establishment.
89. The 1,510 patients treated in Hospital necessarily included many cases, medical and surgical, well worthy of the most careful observation and record.
90. With only one medical officer, however for day and night duty, Sunday and week day, all the year round, nothing more can be attempted than the diagnosis and treatment of disease, and the absence of any conspicuous failure is very satisfactory.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient Servant.
C. J. WHARRY, M.D., Superintendent.
Dr. PH. B. C. AYRES,
Colonial Surgeon.
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