Hong Kong : bubonic plague : memorandum on the treatment of patients in their own homes and in local hospitals / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty.

Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Hong Kong : bubonic plague : memorandum on the treatment of patients in their own homes and in local hospitals / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    MEMORANDUM. The following is the result of an experiment undertaken by me to ascertain how far it might be possible to enlist the co- operation of the Chinese inhabitants in the endeavour to deal with annually recurring epidemics of plague. 2. To understand the reasons that impelled me to undertake this work, it is necessary to remember that for ten years Hong Kong has been scourged by this disease; that no efforts of sanitation have so far decreased its incidence or diminished its virulence; and that the proportion of cases found “ dumped ” in the streets or on the hillsides increased from 25‘1 per cent, in 1898 to 32*7 per cent, in the present year. 3. The increase in the practice of thus depositing dead bodies I attribute to the dread of the disinfecting process as carried out by the Sanitary Authorities. The process is explained as follows in the Memorandum drawn up in June, 1900, by the Medical Officer of Health : — “ Disinfection of infected premises.—This is carried out by a European officer, assisted by eight coloured foremen, a Chinese foreman, and a varying number of coolies. As soon as it is known that a case of the disease has occurred at any house, a Chinese constable is sent from the nearest police station to detain all persons found therein (Bye-law 22, Ordinance 15 of 1894), .and the officer in charge of the disinfection proceeds to the house to ascertain how many persons are detained there. He then procures, either from the matshed at Pray a East or from the Disinfecting Station, as many suits of Government clothing as are needed for the persons so detained, and, having thus provided these persons with clothing, he removes their own clothing, bedding, curtains, and carpets to the Steam Disinfect- ing Station, the clothing being tied up in sheets, dipped in a solution of Jeyes’s fluid, and conveyed through the streets in baskets; persons who are able to obtain new or clean clothing from some uninfected premises are, however, not detained after they have discarded their infected clothing and handed it to the Inspector for disinfection. New goods, silk clothing which has not been recently worn, furs and leather goods are not removed to the Steam Disinfector, but must, as a general rule, remain on the premises until they have been fumigated. When the clothing, &c., is returned (in the course of some two hours) from the Disinfecting Station, the persons who have been de- tained are required to put on their own clothing, and must then leave the premises for some five or six hours while it is disinfected and cleansed. The Government