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.

  • Hong Kong.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: 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 London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    clothing is returned to the Disinfecting Station to be steamed before it is again used. The people so dis- placed from their homes are at liberty to make use of the Board’s matshed shelters until the processes of disinfection of the premises are complete. “ The disinfection of thc' premises consists in the spray- ing of the walls with a solution of perchloride of mercury (1 in 1,000) or fumigation with free chlorine obtained by the addition of diluted sulphuric acid to chlorinated lime (1 quart of a in 8 solution of the acid to each lb. of the chlorinated lime). Floors and furniture are then scrubbed with solution of Jeyes’s fluid, and the walls are then lime-washed, chlorinated lime being added to the lime-wash in the proportion of ^Ib. to the gallon.” It will be observed that on receipt of information of the death of a person a policeman is at once placed in charge of the house, and all the inmates found therein are detained until their clothes are disinfected. This detention anay be for 24 hours; but in many cases it may be for 48 hours, as if the body is removed to the mortuary after the Government officer en- gaged in examination of bodies received has left for the day, no report can be received until after the examination of the bodies next day. The house is then disinfected by scrubbing the furniture and spraying the walls, while the clothing is sent to the Disinfecting Station. The Medical Officer of Health mentions two hours as the time in which the clothing may be expected to be returned. I have visited the Disinfecting Station and seen the process car- ried out. Bedding, clothing, and other belongings, shoos, umbrellas, &c., &c., are placed in large cradles and run into the disinfector on a small tramway. It takes on an average one hour to disinfect each charge, which cani hardly comprise more than the contents of a floor, but when the epidemic is at its height, with possibly the* contents of twenty to thirty houses to be disinfected', it will be seen that the estimate of the time that elapses before the return of the clothing is much under the mark. In the meantime the inmates of the houses are perforce idle, and the loss of a day’s or perhaps two days’ work to the average coolie is not a light matter. Complaints were made that in the process of disinfection much injury was done to the belongings of the people, and it was whispered that squeezes weie extracted by the coolies engaged in disinfection under the threat of injuring furniture and other belongings in the process of disinfection, if money were not paid. This was a matter that no amount of supervision by the Inspector could control, and the Chinese were afraid to come forward and complain openly. There is absolutely no proof that this assertion is true, but there is no doubt that the feeling .existed and helped to intensify the dread of the operations of the Sanitary Authorities.