An epitome of the reports of the medical officers to the Chinese imperial maritime customs service, from 1871 to 1882 : with chapters on the history of medicine in China; materia medica; epidemics; famine; ethnology; and chronology in relation to medicine and public health / compiled and arranged by C.A. Gordon.

Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An epitome of the reports of the medical officers to the Chinese imperial maritime customs service, from 1871 to 1882 : with chapters on the history of medicine in China; materia medica; epidemics; famine; ethnology; and chronology in relation to medicine and public health / compiled and arranged by C.A. Gordon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    number of days on which it rained, 51. In 1873 there were over 34 inches of rain in 55 days. During the half-year now considered, the hottest day was Juno 21st, the only one on which the thermometer reached 100° Fahr. The hottest night was that of July 23rd, when it stood at 76° Fahr. The winter of 1874, although protracted, was not a severe one. It set in early and very sharp on 23rd November, the thermometer suddenly falling from 34° Fahr. on the previous night and 45° Fahr. by day, to 16° Fahr. at night and 31° Fahr. by day. The upper part of the Peiho became frozen over, and did not agaiu open. This is the earliest closure of the upper reaches of the river that has been recorded in these Eeports. The thermometer gradually rose again to 27° Fahr. at night and 49° Fahr. by day until 24th December, when it fell to 10° Fahr. at night and 28° Fahr. by day. During the last live days of December it varied between 3° Fahr. and 7° Fahr. at night, rising to 20° Fahr. during the day.—(IX. 33.) Adverting to the physical conditions of Peking already stated, the Eeport for April— September, 1372, has the remarks quoted as follows, namely : ' But the most remarkable thing is j that with all our filth, dirt, and smells—and people in the West can form no notion of what they are, for they defy description—there is wonderful immunity from fevers. If bad smells alone created fevers, there ought to be no immunity from these diseases in Peking. The police or scavengers employed to water the streets ought to be the Scavenger. c]asg mos^ affected, whereas, leaving out the opium-smokers among them, they are the healthiest and most robust of our population. The beggars, a numerous class, sleep in the streets nearly all the year round, congregate in the very centres of pollution, and eggars. even i0 some extent contest with the dogs priority of claim to the refuse of the dunghills. Still they survive and flourish, and most of them—at least, the strictly professional ones—look fat and sleek. To add to this picture of filth, we boast of no public latrines. The male portion of the inhabitants squat in the streets after dark—very many, too, during the day—and that sometimes in the most crowded thoroughfares. One of our greatest nuisances is the removal of this filth in small barrows through the public streets at all M times of the day. It is dried and stored in empty places, either within the city or immediately outside the gates. The most polluted places are generally the mouths of caves and waste places, or tumble-down, unoccupied shops or houses. A favourite place is the ruinous police-stations, which are so numerous in the public thoroughfares. Not- withstanding this revolting description, after an experience of eight years, Dr. Dudgeon was led to believe that the climate is not an unhealthy one.'' Then follows a foot-note to this effect: ' The „ „ , sanitary legislation of Western cities is based upon the one idea that disagreeable Western Standard. Z. . m. ■ and offensive odours are necessarily deleterious to health. The condition and mortality of Peking would seem rather to explode this belief. The removal of night-soil may be considered most destructive to health, yet here—there being no system for carrying off' sewage or scouring drains—the entire night-soil of the city is transported during the day through the most crowded and sometimes narrow thoroughfares. We are obliged to pass certain localities at all times with closed nostrils, while hundreds of people continually live in and above these open cess- pools, and yet manage to look well and healthy. Many diseases prevail here, as in the West, without the agency of this reputed cause—noxious odours; and the causes exist at all times here without producing such diseases.'—(IV. 41.) Adverting to a case of typhoid fever in his Eeport to 30th September, 1872, Dr. Dudgeon Drains and wrote : f It is not yet proved that the exhalations of drains, privies, and stagnant Typhoid. water do contain or disseminate this poison (namely, the poison of typhoid fever), or that through such exhalations it can be absorbed into the system.'—(VI. 7.)