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Ordinary cleansing, I believe, to be the most effective preventive of plague. Short simple instructions should be posted in Chinese houses requiring rat runs to be closed and rooms cleansed, every house inspected, say, once a month at a fixed hour on a day, the contents of the room placed in the centre, obstructions to light and air removed. The Inspector should examine punctually at the time appointed and grint a certificate that the room is clean. Following the Inspector should come the cleaning gangs to cleanse those floors which the Inspec or his not passed. I venture to say that if this procedure were adopted, within a few months there would be few floors left for the cleansing gangs to deal with.
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Tauks as at present (but more of them) should perambulate the streets daily containing plain boiling water for killing vermin by immersion of mats and trestles.
6. Regarding the concreting of floors and other structural repairs, I think, that after a house has been put in order a certificate should be given absolving it from farther Sauitary requirements for a period.
7. Where no cubicles exist a larger number of persons might be allowed to occupy a room than is permitted by present regulations. The al owance of 50 feet of floor ar-a and 550 cubic feet of air is excessive wh u it is considered that for eight months of the year the window and doors remain open day and night.
8. Drains, as far as possible, should be abolished and surface channels substituted,
9. Gratings to drain pipes should not be insisted upon as the tenants smash them as soon as they are fixed.
10. Kitchen sinks are not used by Chinese, and should not be required.
11. As instancing what can be done by ordinary cleansing may mention that plague was very bad during the years preceding 1901 in the Wharf Company's employees' quarters at Kowloon,
In 1901 they were overhauled, every rat and m use destroyed and every possible breeding place filled up, since which the premises have been flooded with light and air daily and every floor cleaused about once a month.
The effect of these measures has been that only one case of plague bas occurred during six plague seasons, notwithstanding that the disease has raged in the neighbourhood.
It takes me one hour per week to inspect 84 floors (they are of cou se prepared for inspection) and although I do not suggest that the whole City can be treated with the same thoroughness, I see no reason why similar methods in a modified form should not be adop'ed.
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
A--We lost rent. The original agreement with the t naats was that they should take possession from the date of passing by the Government, and the certificate from one Department came in one day, but the certificate from the Sanitary Board did not come in for some days afterwards, so that it was not com. pletely passed by the Government, and that interval lost the Hotel Company some hundreds of dollars.
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Mr. Shelton Hooper,-From your experience, as a past member of the Sanitary Board, having to do with Inildings, and knowing the mode of procedure that takes place, plans have to go to the Building Authority, and sepira's plans for drainage to the Sanitary Board, and certain plans with regard to the height of buildings have to go to the Sanitary Board for approval. Don't you think that if the Building Authority were done away with altogether, or amalgamated with the anitary Board, and we had a sanitary and building board, composed very much as it is now, with an Executive Engineer and a Medical Officer of Health who should report to the Board, and the Board masters of the situation, that it would be a deal better than the present mode of proce lure, and a better carrying out of the Ordinance ?
A.-Yos, I think one Executive Engineer to do that work of bath Departments, would ba preferable. As a matter of fact, various small jobs we do at the Kowloon wharves are very often finished before we got permission to do them. I get the contract and the plans out, but cannot always wait for the permission. If I did, I might wait indefinitely."
The Chairman. Your experience is that you don't get the plans passed, so promptly as they might be?
A.- No.
Q-How long do you have to wait on an average for small work, sma 1 repairs?
A-We rarely get permission under a fort- night.
MR. HOOPER'S APPENDIX.
VITAL PART OF COMMISSION'S REPORT, The following excellent Historical Review of Sanitary Administration in the Colony appeared as Appendix No. 7 to the report of the Commission :-
1. The earliest record
of any sanitary administration of the Colony, is when the Sanitary question was taken up by the Govern ment and a Committee of Public Health and Cleauliness was appointed in August, 1843, with authority to enforce rigid sanitary rules amongst all classes of residents, but no effective measures were taken. Those rules were sub- sequently formulated by Ordinance 5 of 1944.
2. Ordinance Number 14 of 1845 enacted inter alia that the oompier of premises should not allow the accumulation of filth or other offen.
sire substances within his premises. This was
12. Having given considerable attention to the question of plague in connection with several thousands of employees I claim to possess some knowledge of the subject from the Chinese point of view and I am convinced that only a proportion of plague cases comes within the knowledge of the Sanitary Authorities; indeed, as a rule, only those unfortunates are reported who are without friends to send them out of the Colony and those whose home is in Hongkong.follows.
13. The Colony maintains a large staff whose efforts to cope with plague will never, in my opinion, be successful without the co-operation of the Chinese and this co-operation can only be obtained by giving the Chinese freedom to
followed in 1856 by an Ordinance to regulate Chinese burials, and to prevent certain nuisances, within the Colony of Hongkong as
3. "Such of the Orders and Regulations of
the General Board of Health established in London under Authority of the Acts of Parlia ment for the protection of the Public Health, or any of them, as shall be from time to time, by
(June 1, 1907.
8. The following Chief Inspictor was aadə" 'to these four.
Mr. Osbert Chadwick was commissioned to. make a Report on the Sanitation of the Colony. 9. No further change seems to have bea made until 1883, when a Sanitary Department was created as a Sab Department of the Survey Department, under the directions of Mr. H. McCllam who was designated Sanitary Inspector".
10. In the same year "The Order and Clean- liness Amendment Ordinance " was passed whereby the Governor might constitute & permanent Sanitary Board consisting of the Surveyor General, Registrar General, Colonial Surgeon and not less than 2 other members to be appointed by the Governor, but as a matter of fact the Board consisted of 8 members.
11. Mr. H. McCallum was Sanitary Inspector to the Sub Department of Public Works Department and was a member and Honorary Secretary to the Sanitary Roard.
12. The first appointment was a Medical Inspector. Mr. McCallum was appointed a Savitary Inspector. The other Inspectors were Inspectors of Nuisances.
13. In 1837 the Board was composed of the Surveyor General (Chairman), Registrar General, Colonial Surgeon, Major Dempster (djutant of the Police), Messrs. McEwen, Manson, Ede, Ho Kai, H. McCallum (Becretary).
4. Iu the latter part of the year 887 a new Public Health Bill was introduced into the Legislature and after the fullest discussions extending over some mouths it was passed bat by a suspending clause in the Ordinance it did not become law aniil it was notified that it was not disallowed by the Queen which notification was gazetted in May, 1888.
15. This Ordinauce was the first which gave the right to the public of electing any represen. tatives on the Board and the important principle
was admitted in the connection of the Board by an unofficial majority,
16. The Ordinance ennoted that the Board should consist of the Surveyor General, Registrar General, Captain Superintendent of Police and the Colonial Surgeon and not more than 6 additional members, 4 of whom shall be appointed by the Governor and 2 elected by the Ratepayers.
17. It is made evident the latter 6 should be non-official members as the last part of the same section says 'non-official members of the Board shall hold office for 3 years".
Thereby the unofficial majority of members of the Board was provided for.
18. In Committee of the Legislative Counci', the Attorney General said:-"It must be remembered hat the nominee of the Governor when once he has accepted Office and is a member of the Board is perfectly independent, and it must be born in mind that the new Board will consist of only 4 official members and six aofficial members
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19. Mr. McEwen said there was nothing to prevent the Governor appointing say a Military wan and so it is not certain that the unofficial element will predominate", to which His Excellency the Governor replied:
With regard to the Military man, the Military generally have their own Board of Health and I do not think it usual-I won't sy it is against the law to appoint one
treat the sick in their own homes; and by the Governor in Executive Council determined belonging to the garrison to such a Board as
applying existing regulations only in such instance where the people will not of their own accord keep their premises clean.
The treatment of sick Chinese in their own homes was, I understand, tried experimentally under Sir Henry Blake's réime and records show that plague rau more or less through the whole block of houses experimented upon. The deduction made from this is that the disease spread through the block iu consequence of the first patients not having been isolated. The deduction which it seems to me may be made with equal justice is that in this instance the patients were not concealed and the real extent of the di-ease was for once made known.
and notified, with such modifications thereof respectively as His Excellency in Conacil shall think fit to adopt, shall for such Time and to such Exten' or with such Modifications as shall be so notified, extend to, and be enforced within this Colony under the Authority of this Ordi-
nance.
4. Under the Crdinance of Order and Clean- liness 1866 the Governor was empowered to appoint a duly qualified Medical Practitioner to be Medical Inspector of the Colony who shall perform such duties connected with the Sanitary state of the Colony as the Governor shall dir ›ct. 5. Although the Ordinance was repealed in the following year the above section was re- Mr.anaoted y the Amending Ordinance.
At one sitting of the Commission, Osborne gave sworn testimony, as follows:- The Chairman.-Do I understand from you, Mr. Osborne, that the Building Authority and Sanitary Department had practically passed buildings, but, b-cause the certificates were not promptly forwarded to you, you lost a fortnight's rent?
6. The Medical Inspector appears to have had no direct staff ander him until 1873 when a Chinaman was appointed Scavenger for all Departments under Survey Department and this continued until 1878.
7. In 1879 four European Inspectors were appointed to Survey Department.
this".
20. The Board from this time consisted of 10 membe:s and was constituted as provided for by Ordinance of 1887.
21. In 1895 a new office was created, viz., that of Medical Officer of Health and in April a Bill was introduced into the Legislative Council authorising the Governor in case there was no vacancy on the Board to appoint the Medical Officer of Health a member of the Sanitary Board.
22. This was strenuously opposed in the Council, and in support of the opposition Hon- ourable Mr. A. McConachie read the following quotation from the report of a Medical Com- mission appointed by the Governor to enquire into the working of the Medical Department of this Colony and which was received by the Governor on the previous day.
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That the Medical Officer should be adviser to the Governor on all Sanitary "Matters through the Sanitary Board to
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