Sessional_Paper_1903 — Page 440

HONGKONG.

SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE,

Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor.

No. 1903

29

CIRCULAR.

SIR,

Downing Street, May 28th, 1903.

DURING my term of office I have addressed to the Governors of the tropical Colonies various circular despatches on medical and sanitary subjects, more especially in connexion with the investigation of malaria and the training of medical officers in the treatment and prevention of tropical diseases.

In the present despatch I wish to summarise the steps which have been taken and the results which have followed, and also to make some suggestions as regards the future.

2. The great mortality among Europeans in such climates at those of the West African Colonies and Protectorates had not failed to attract my notice from the first as it had that of my predecessors in office, and towards the end of the year 1897, largely through the interest taken in the matter by Dr. Manson, who had succeeded Sir Charles Gage-Brown as Medical Adviser of the Colonial Office, my attention was more definitely directed to the importance of scientific enquiry into the causes of malaria, and of special education in tropical medicine for the inedical officers of the Crown Colonies.

3. In pursuance of the second of these two objects it was clearly advisable («) that a special training school in tropical medicine should be established, where officers, newly appointed to the medical services of the Colonies and Protectorates, might be given systematic instruction with special facilities for clinical study, before leaving England to take up their appointments, and where doctors already in the service might, when on leave, have opportunities of bringing their professional knowledge up to date; (b) that all the leading medical schools in the United Kingdom should be invited to give greater prominence than hitherto in their schemes of study to tropical medicine; (c) that the medical reports periodically sent from the tropical Colonies and Protectorates should be re-cast on one uniform type, designed to throw light on the diseases which are most prevalent in tropical countries, and to indicate the methods likely to be most successful in preventing or caring such diseases.

4. With reference to the first of these three objects, the provision of a special training school, it was considered that the Albert Dock Branch of the Seamen's Hospital, which was about to be enlarged, was likely to offer the facilities required, standing as it does at the dock gates, admitting sufferers from tropical diseases direct from ships from all parts of the world and being moreover within easy reach of the Colonial Office and therefore likely to be in close touch with that office. These considerations decided me to approach the managers of this hospital in preference to endeavouring to make whatever arrangements might be possible for attaining the object in view, at the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar or the Royal Victoria Hospital for soldiers at Netley, at which latter hospital officers of the Indian Medical service receive instruction in tropical diseases.

5. On the 2nd of February, 1898, a letter was by my directions addressed to the Committee of the Seamen's Hospital Society, asking whether, in the enlargement of their branch hospital at the Albert Docks, it might not be possible to provide accommodation for the contemplated tropical school. The letter stated that it was not probable that more than six officers would be under instruction at any one time, and that the course of instructiou should last for three or four months. The committee, of the hospital were asked on what terms and conditions they would be prepared to make the necessary arrangements.

6. Answering on the 16th of April the Committee stated their opinion that there was in the Society's hospitals and dispensaries clinical material for the study of tropical diseases which could not be found elsewhere in the United Kingdom in the same amount and variety. They estimated that, if a school for tropical diseases was to be formed in connexion with their branch hospital at the Albert Docks, it would be necessarry, instead of enlarging the number of beds as they had already arranged, from 18 to 30, to raise it to 45; that this new wing would cost in construction approximately £10,000, and in maintenance £2,000 per annum, and that the school buildings would cost in construction approximately