Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 722

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When removals to Lai-Chi-Kok were sanctioned, nearly 350 were asked whether they wanted to go, but not one wished to be removed at the first time of asking, i.e., on admission, and as the result of the enquiry being several times repeated subsequently only 13 altogether were transferred to that place. The experiences of those removed to Canton were too well known by the patients, it being a most significant fact that after the first four junks with patients left for Canton not a single patient could be persuaded to leave for that city.

In the Slaughter House Hospital one afternoon, when 65 patients were asked if they would like to go to the British Hospital, 58 expressed their desire to go- on the following day only 4 of these actually did so.

On the 4th August, when we were arranging with Mr. WEI YUK to remove all the patients in the Slaughter House Hospital to Kennedytown all the patients there expressed their extreme desire to be removed to Kennedytown Hospital. Those remaining on the 10th August were so removed. The "extreme desire" was due to the fact that the Chinese had had enough of hospital work.

Chinese patients treated in British hospitals refused point blank to be removed anywhere until fit to be discharged, and in most instances it was a difficult matter to get rid of them when discharged. All this goes to prove that the patients were simply bullied by those in charge of the Chinese hospitals, and that all the noise about removals to Canton and Lai-Chi-Kok was made by outsiders.

Without entering into further personal experiences-and not to relate many similar instances, which Surgeon-Major JAMES, Surgeon PENNY, Dr. W. J. C. Lowson, and Dr. J. F. MOLYNEUX have mentioned to me-I have no hesitation in saying that a great deal, if not all, of the opposition and difficulty, which was experienced during the epidemic, was directly caused by those in authority-Chinese doctors (?) and influential natives at the Tung Wa Hospital; and by the neglect to promulgate the ordinary dictates of Public Health, attention to which has made many parts of India, and other Colonies, what they are to-day. It was this same Chinese opposition which almost led to riot on several occasions during the latter end of May, and during the early part of June; and which was at the bottom of many personal insults and threats that compelled the medical men occupied in plague work-who had to bear the brunt of Chinese dislike and intrigue-to carry loaded revolvers in their pockets when they reached the excited neighbourhood of the Tung Wa Hospital.

The mortality statistics of the Tung Wa Hospital have also given rise to a good deal of discussion, but here rather a want of knowledge of the circumstances under which the Hospital is conducted has been displayed. An absolutely correct return of deaths will never be got unless post mortem examinations are made in many cases, and I don't suppose that these will be allowed. Not only this but in trying to get a definite diagnosis of fever cases it is possible to go too far. Every careful physician knows the difficulty of distinguishing typhoid fever from other fevers, especially malarial, and this difficulty is intensified when the cases can only be seen once or twice at most, or when the case is moribund on admission.

The proposal to place some of the students of the Chinese School of Medicine in the Tung Wa to improve the preparation of the mortality statistics is a bad one, and would not improbably lead to a sense of false security. Where it is difficult for an experienced European doctor to make a correct diagnosis it would be scarcely fair to ask a semi-educated Chinaman to do so; and the result would be that causes of death would be given, but possibly not the right causes; and the new state of affairs would be worse than the old, in fact, an exemplification of the saying that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

The only remedy is to sweep the place away except as a receiving ward for dead bodies and for persons in a moribund condition, and to have another hospital out-