Report of the medical superintendent of Yaws Hospitals.

  • Nicholls, H. A. Alford (Henry Alfred Alford) 1851-1926.
Date:
1878-9]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the medical superintendent of Yaws Hospitals. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    MEDICAL SUPERINTENDENT OF YAWS HOSPITALS. DURING tile year 1878 the Yaws question, which has caasei much anxiety on account of its vital importance to the welfare of Do- minica, may be said to have arrived at that stage at which a solution may be discerned at no very distant date. Within the last few years the disease has attacked so many of the families of the peasantry that considerable alarm has been felt among all classes throughout the island. The disablemeat by yaws of a grea* number of agricultural' labourers could not have but a deteriorating iuflu enc9 u pon the comoieroG of aa Island in which the staple products are raised from the soil; and the willing acqoiescence of the Legisla- ture in adding to She burdens laid upon :i heavily taxed and impov- erished commuaity, by the imposition of a special yaws tax, testifies to the gravity of what has not inaptly b-ien termed the yaws ques- tion. The efforts made a year or so ago to hold in check, and if possible subdue the ravages of the disease were unhappily not successful, and in consequeQce of this failure considerable doubts as to the practica- bility of grappling with the malady were enc^rtained by many per- sons in Dominica and elsewhere- As wiil be seen by a study of the various papers upon the subject already made public, the failure of the first efforts was due mainly to the ill-chosen sites of the hospitals and to the imperfect organization of the yaws administration. Section], THE HOSPITALS. When I assumed the superintendence of the yaws hospitals at the end f April 1877, two hospitals were in existence, one at Morne Bruce, hich had been working for several years, and tha other at Prince Buperts, which was established on June l2th, 1876. Sooa aftei my ppointnient the erection of a Central Hospital within two miles ot oseau was commenced^ and it was ope.ngd for the reception of patients on October llth, 1S77. Upon the same day the Morne Bruce Hospital w^is closed and all the inmates to the nurater of 50 were drafted into the new establishment, ; Thus, at the opening of the year 187S, the Central and the Prince Ruperts Hospitals, each capable of accommodating one hundred patients, were in operation. On May 20th the new wing of the latter hospital, erected only a few month j previously, was destroyod by fire—the work of an incendiary, and during the remainder of the tiuiu that the estaii- lishment was kept open many of the patients were housed in wards hastily exteraporizeii for the purpose. The hospital was finally closed on May I6tli, all its inmates being transferred to the Central Hospital, so that there is now only one yaws hospital in the Island. The followinf]c tables will show the work of the hospitals both pre- vious and subsequent to ray appointment as Superintenient in April, 1877,