Medicine and surgery in the Orient : early days of the American Surgical Association / by J. Ewing Mears.

  • James Ewing Mears
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine and surgery in the Orient : early days of the American Surgical Association / by J. Ewing Mears. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    so OBJHCF ]^S^Nf ^Rfm(pOM4^, INDIA ''So far as I am aVare, he*;?^!^' ^^there i/no like set of conditions anywhere else in theN^;fi^Jg|^^]^|,£*migements at this institution are to be highly commenoeST^'ihey are along the line of honest progressive methods in the treatment of the entire subject. A small crematorium has been established at the Leper Hospital by Dr. Turkhud, the physician in charge. This, Dr. Mears considered to be a very important step in the right direction, regarding it as an object lesson to the Hindus of a better and more sanitary method of disposing of their dead, than the open and crude system of crema- tion now practised. It would seem desirable, he observed, ''for the municipality or the government to establish in the city of Bombay a number of such crematoria and to try and induce the Hindus to adopt this improved method of burning the dead. Dr. Mears saw much of what has been and is being done to reconstruct the worst areas of the native city. Under the guidance of Dr. Venis and his assistants, he said, I visited the slums of Bombay—the quarters inhabited by the poorest people. I saw the conditions in which these people are compelled to live, and to me it was no wonder that epidemic diseases existed, but I marvelled that they did not exist in greater degree. Seeing these dwellings, I was greatly impressed by the immense difficulties which the Health Department have to contend with in overcoming defective conditions and in establishing those which are in every way. sanitary. From these slum quarters I went to the buildings which the Improvement Trust have erected and there I saw what I regard as a most important advance in the amelioration of the condition of these people. The new buildings are constructed on the very best hygienic and sanitary conditions, and the regulations, a copy of which was shown to me, will certainly conduce to the most improved conditions of sanitation which it is possible to apply to an Indian Community. I feel as one interested in sanitary matters, went on the Doctor,
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