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Mr. MCCONACHIE.-But that is the native character ?
Dr. LowsON.-Yes.
Mr. MCCONACHIE.-I must say I am of your opinion.
Dr. CANTLIE.-What the Government want is to have men who can give valuable information about diseases.
Dr. Lowson. They won't get it in this way then. That is our experience in the Tung Wah Hospital. You will get a return of deaths from something, but you will not get at the true cause of death.
Dr. CANTLIE. But we would get nearer the truth. If we get a report of "simple continued fever " we can form our own estimate of it. A Chinese doctor over at Kow- loon would get more information as to the causes of death than a European.
Dr. Lowson.-If I were the Medical Officer of Health for the Colony, I would take the Sanitary Inspectors and the Chinese interpreters, and I would get more inform- ation out of them than you would get from these dispensers. It is all a question of the registration of deaths, and it has got to begin at the top. The Government should first pass an Ordinance making the registration of death compulsory; the present defects are not due to medical mismanagement but to the fact that there is no compulsory registration of death-cause of death is often out of the question.
Dr. CANTLIE.-And if you were in charge you would say these Dispensers were absolutely useless?
Dr. Lowson, You might get them to do some little work; but to give them $60 a month would be a gross waste of money. I would make some of these licentiates extra Sanitary Inspectors or interpreters-attach them to the staff of the Medical Officer of Health for the Colony, and let him instruct them as to the registration of deaths. But I would not start Dispensaries. Attached to the Health Officer's staff they would be useful, because that officer would have his eye upon them. They have a certain amount of medical knowledge; but you should not let them get out of your sight for a
moment.
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Dr. CANTLIE. Do you think U I KAI is useful to you in the Civil Hospital? Do you use him as a dispenser or is he in charge of the wards ?
Dr. Lowson. He is. He has passed his examination, and he knows as much as some European medical men. I have not time to give a patient in Hospital hypodermic injections for instance, so I set U I KAI to give them an injection of morphia. Minor operations also he is sometimes entrusted with. He has been under our training for five years. We will require another dispenser if we are going to have more Chinese in the Civil Hospital. UI KAI, the only man who is of any use to us, I can see, will be taken from us and appointed Superintendent of the Tung Wah Hospital. He knows exactly how we work, and if he were put into the Tung Wah Hospital it would be a great loss to us.
Dr. CANTLIE.There is another man down in Borneo whom they want as Super- intendent for the Tung Wah.
Dr. Lowson.-I would not recommend that gentleman. He was recommended as interpreter to the Kennedytown Station and I found his absence preferable to his presence.
THE PRESIDENT.-Do you think if there were more chances of employment the Chinese would pass through the College of Medicine?
Dr. Lowson. It is the same old story about the Chinese being a backward race. If you will pay them to go there and learn they will go and learn. How much they learn is an unknown quantity so far. Those students at the Alice Memorial Hospital
do not
pay for their education.
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