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THE PRESIDENT.-Would you confine them to Chinese cases?
Dr. Lowson.-No; they would assist in the general work.
Dr. CANTLIE.—You could do with six or eight of them?
Dr. Lowsox.—We have proposed only two as a precaution against failure. If they turn out well, we might get more girls to come in and learn.
Dr. CANTLIE-By having eight or nine of these nurses trained locally you would do better than with two Sisters from home?
Dr. Lowson. I feel very confident in saying just now that it will prove a successful experiment, and if it does not come out all right in three months' time there is no loss to the Government or anybody. It is a very expensive way to bring out Sisters from home. There are a great many Eurasian girls in the Colony with nothing to do and if we could train them here as nurses they might go to the coast ports and do good work.
THE PRESIDENT.-They might be used as private nurses in the Colony ?
Dr. Lowson.-Yes. I believe they could go out as nurses and very soon make their own living.
THE PRESIDENT.--Are you in favour of the Government opening Dispensaries in various parts of the Colony?
Dr. Lowson.-Theoretically, I am; but this wants qualification. I think it would be a good idea to have a Government Dispensary at Kowloon, but from my knowledge of the Chinese character, acquired within the last six years, I think at the present moment the Civil Hospital and the Alice Memorial Hospital, given out-patient departments well conducted, would do far more good than Dispensaries. In the first place, I think Dr. CANTLIE'S estimate about these Dispensaries is very much under what will be the actual cost; it was under $3,000 for four dispensaries. We have the best idea about the price of drugs, and we estimate the cost at $6,500. Then there are no men to fill the post of dispensers. I do not think, with all due deference to Dr. CANTLIE, that he has a man from the College of Medicine to fill these posts. The scheme is a grand one, but you do not have the men to carry it out.
Dr. CANTLIE.—They had to begin in India fifty years ago under the same objections. In India now, they have splendid training colleges. You cannot make the men until you give them a chance of getting the education. The real question is whether these men would be of any use at all.
Dr. Lowsox. You have one man available. The others who have graduated in the College of Medicine have gone to Borneo or up the country, and there is only one here just now. From my own experience of one of these men, if they were allowed to have charge of these Dispensaries, I would say there will be an amount of squeezing which it will be difficult to stop; and I really believe, ultimately, these Dispensaries would be more an abuse than anything else. If they are to be established, let them be free. Don't charge these poor people if you want to reach them. If the Chinese want European advice they will go to a European and not to the native doctors who are only semi-educated. Some of these students have very foggy ideas of medicine-mostly learned like parrots.
Mr. THURBURN.-I suppose it is impossible for the College of Medicine to give a proper training?
Dr. CANTLIE. The great difficulty is the preliminary education.
Mr. MCCONACHIE.-Your estimate of the native character leads you to believe that if a Chinese doctor were put in charge of this Dispensary at Kowloon, without European supervision, he would speedily become demoralised ?
Dr. Lowsos. He would speedily accumulate a fortune,
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