Sessional_Paper_1903 — Page 472

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Appendix A.

REPORT OF THE EXPERIMENATAL BLOCK IN SECOND AND THIRD STREETS.

FROM 20TH APRIL, 1903, TO THE 20TH JULY, 1903.

CENTRAL POLICE STATION,

YOUR EXCELLENCY,

I have the honour to report the following for

HONGKONG, 18th July, 1903.

your information :-

On or about the 20th of April, at the direction of your Excellency, I took over charge of the South side of Second Street, the North side of Third Street from Eastern to Western Street, and all streets and lanes within this boundary.

On the 22nd of April, we started a systematic cleansing out of all the houses within this radius. We usually washed out from 9 to 12 floors daily at each tank, of which there were 4 in the experimental block. The tanks measured 9 feet in length, 2 feet in width and 3 feet deep and held about 400 gallons of water. Into this quantity we put about 2 pints of carbolic acid and when this was boiling we commenced operations. We induced the people to first dip their mats and cloth material into the tanks for about 2 minutes, after which we dipped the bed boards, stools and furniture, etc., and more especially the kind of furniture most likely to harbour vermin.

After the furniture, etc., had been washed, the floors were first washed out with cold water and then sluiced down with hot water from the tanks, and when the things were dry the occupants removed them back to their houses again.

If a case of Plague or other infectious disease came from any of the floors, the same process was gone through with the addition that the clothing, etc., was disinfected, either by dipping them into the hot water tanks or at the disinfecting station as the people preferred.

During the early part of our experiment, when a case broke out on a floor, we allowed the patient to remain in the house and removed the other occupants to an empty floor.

When the patient died or recovered, the occupants moved back again after the house had been cleaned out.

Latterly, instead of this, we rented a house in the block and turned it into a Hospital. When a case came to our notice, the patient was removed to the Hospi- tal. The other occupants then washed out their furniture and had their clothing disinfected. They did not shift but remained where they were.

On the 25th of April, owing to the Plague being upon us, we set all the tanks going and washed out the whole block.

On the 14th of May, owing to the large number of Plague cases in Sheung Fung Lane, all the people living there, numbering 339 persons, were removed to the observation block in Kui Yan Lane. After removal no further cases occurred amongst them.

On the 25th of May, we took over both sides of Second and Third Streets, making a total of 253 houses consisting of 614 floors and occupied by 7,701 persons inclu- sive. 78 of these floors were vacant at the time this census was taken.

On the 27th of May, we started to wash out the new block in conjunction with the old block.

On the 29th of May we caught a number of bugs in Sheung Fung Lane and sent them to Dr. HUNTER for examination.

A number of them contained Plague baccillus.