Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 941

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4. Whether European methods of treatment are insisted upon by the Government, and if so whether any opposition on the part of the Chinese has been or is experienced.

I am further to enquire whether there are any non-Government Hospitals for Chinese in which patients are treated by Chinese doctors according to native methods, and if so whether they are under the supervision of the Government Medical Officers, and to what extent it is permitted to such officers to interfere in cases (more especially surgical) where Chinese treatment appears to them to be dangerous to the life of a patient.

I should also be obliged if you would be good enough to inform me to what extent the Chinese in the Straits Settlements voluntarily avail themselves of the Government and other Hospitals entirely under European management, and how far generally Western medical science has become popularised amongst them.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

J. H. STEWART LOCKHART,

Colonial Secretary.

The Honourable

THE COLONIAL SECRETARY,

SINGAPORE.

(Colonial Secretary, Singapore, to Colonial Secretary, Hongkong.)

COLONIES 7085/95.

COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,

SINGAPORE, 17th September, 1895.

SIR, I am directed by the Governor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter No. 1771 of the 30th August, requesting information regarding the management and administration of the Government Pauper Hospital in Singapore.

2. The early history of the institution, which is known as Tan Tock Seng's Hospital, is briefly recapitulated in the preamble of Ordinance VII of 1880 by which the Hospital was incorporated. A copy of this Ordinance as amended by Ordinance IV of 1881 may be found in Volume II of Harwood's Edition of the Ordinances of the Straits Enclosure 1. Settlements 1867 to 1886. A copy of the existing bye-laws made under the Ordinance LXYIL) is enclosed. The Hospital was founded for the treatment of paupers of all nations

indiscriminately.

(See page

Enclosure 2. (See page LXVIII.)

Enclosure 3. (See page

XIX.)

3. As regards the questions on which you more especially desire information the answers appear to be as follows :—

(1). The Hospital is open to all nationalities, but the great bulk of the patients treated is Chinese. The nationalities of the patients in 1894 are shewn in the table on page 13 of the Report on the Civil Hospitals in the Colony for that year forwarded herewith.

(2). The medical staff of the Hospital consists of both Europeans and Asiatics.

A statement of the actual staff now employed is enclosed.