The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-05-05
IN A CHINESE HOSPITAL.
St. James Gazette.

RAUDsA OS AAOAS AOh6J oAA SSW bAOAO many things of interest, the routine in a Chinese hospital being very differ ent from that of a European one. In the early days of the colony the Chi nesc inhabitants used commonly to thrust out their sick and dying into the street, there to perish. To remedy so scandalous a state of things the government offered to provide hos pital for the exclusive use of the Chi nese community, and this offer they accepted, with the proviso that it should be under their own manage ment. A suitable building was &C., cordingly erected and handed over to 8 Chinese committee in 1867. The medical staff are all Chinese, and their practice, l was informed, is quite un- influenced by European science.
 AS our chair coolies deposited us at the entrance to the hospital, Q fine stone building situated in the center of the Chinese quarter, we observed crowd of people in front of series of large frames suspended against the wall and containing some hundreds of photographs. The stolid demeanor of the crowd gave us no hint as to the tragic nature of the exhibition and it was only on our way out that 8 casual glance at the photographs re- revealed to us the ghastly truth. A few days previously one of the passen- ger steamboats which ply between Hong Kong and Canton took fire while she had on board over 300 Chi nese, who had gone to the jubilee eel ebration. Nearly all these poor people were lost, though the steamboat was run ashore and there were plenty of native boats about. The few who were saved owed their lives to pass ing European vessel. The committee of the Tung Wa hospital had had the bodies photographed, and the grue- some picture was shown in public for purposes of identification. A less careless glance now shows us some pa- thetic groups-wives, husbands, par ents, children, searching for what might turn 8 terrible fear into a no less terrible certainty, but the indif- ference and stolidity of the Chinese character were still apparent in the crowd.
 The hospital itself is a large two- story building with verandas, and it contains large airy wards of the usual character. Each ward, however, is divided by incomplete wooden psrti- tions into eight cells, in each of which is accommodation for two patients, who thus enjoy certain degree of privacy. The Chinese have yet to learn the paramount importance in & hospital of cleanliness and good venti- lation. The beds consisted of boards resting on trestles and covered by 8 grass mat, with bamboo pillow, and by each was an earthen pipkin con- taining medicine. Many of the sick were smoking-some tobacco, more of them opium. We heard that in cases which were considered hopeless pa- tients were allowed to smoke opium ad lt6. if so, the percentage of hope less cases must have been high, judg- ing from the number of patients who gazed at us with lack -lustre eyes and listless expression. The other patients nodded pleasantly to us, and the pres- ent of cigar or cigarette evoked num- berless "Chin-ch The wards themselves were fairly clean, but the patients as rule were dirty, and among the surgical cases we observed many with undressed, unwashed wounds, and other evidences of neg lect. In the women's quarter we came upon a group of some thirty or forty young girls, many of them really pretty, whose merry laughter and the vigor with which they piled their chop sticks, emptying bowls of rice, fish, etc., suggested that they could not be patients. We learned that they were kidnapped girls, mostly from the mainland, who had been rescued by the police and were lodged at the hos pital until claimed by their friends.
 The dispensary was the place of greatest interest, perhaps. It was most neatly and methodically ar- ranged, and the staff were hard at work making up prescriptions. Round the walls were numberless drawers, mostly containing dried plants, shredded roots, minerals, etc., also ves- sells filled with bones, huge, nauseous- looking boluses, as big as plums, etc. Among the bones some fragments of a tigers frame were shown us as a great treasure, their use being to "makee trong," as the dispenser explained. As each prescription was read por- tions of various roots, leaves, etc., were weighed out, wrapped up in brown paper and marked with a brush. In an adjoining room we saw the rest of the process. Each packet of drugs was placed in an earthen pip kin, with water, and set to simmer on a charcoal fire and the resulting decoc- tion was sent to the patient in the pipkin in which it had been made. Al