Plague deaths in Hong Kong

Submitted by David on Thu, 04/28/2016 - 12:58

Where no source is given, the number of case is taken from a table on page M25 of the Medical & Sanitary report for 1929, http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkgro/view/a1929/709.pdf

Year Civil Population Plague cases Plague deaths Deaths as % of cases Deaths per 1,000 pop'n Source
1894 246,006 5,000     2 (Uses 1891 population figures)
1895   44        
1896   1,204        
1897   21        
1898   1,320        
1899   1,486        
1904   510        
1908 421,499 1,073 986 92% 2.3 Vital Statistics & Medical & Sanitary Reports
1909   135        
1914   2,146        
1919   464        
1920   138        
1921   150        
1922   1,181        
1923   148        
1924   0        
1929 1,047,260 2 2 100% 0 Medical & Sanitary Reports
1934 944,492 0 0 0 0 Medical & Sanitary Reports
1939 1,050,256 0 0 0 0 Population and Births and Deaths & Medical and Sanitary reports

Breakdown of 1894 figures by hospital, as quoted in the "Medical Report on the Epidemic of Bubonic Plague in 1894":

Hospital Plague cases Plague deaths
"Hygeia" 154 117
Kennedytown Hospital 264 200
Alice Memorial Branch Hospital 110 93
Glass Works and Slaughter House Hospitals (cases calculated as sum of "Under observation", Plague cured", and "Deaths from Plague") 2,211 2,068
Government Civil Hospital Isolation Wards (cases calculated by subtracting transfers from the 32 cases that were treated) 7 7
Totals 2,746 2,485

This gives a total number of Plague cases for 1894 that is lower than the 5,000 given in the first table. The report explains that the lower figure is just for cases that passed through hospitals, and that "the number of dead bodies found in town and sent straigh to the burial ground is not included here."

Interesting note in the 1934 Medical & Sanitary Report (emphasis mine):

Plague.

104.    For the last five years no cases of plague have been reported in Hong Kong. The disappearance of this disease not only from this Colony but from the greater part of China and its decline throughout the world are due to factors which are not understood.

105.    Systematic rat-catching and periodical cleansing of houses were carried out throughout the year. The total number of rats collected was 175,687 of which 21,976 were taken alive, as compared with 174,272 and 17,038 in 1933. The number collected each year shows that there is no diminution in the rat population. All the rats collected were sent to the Public Mortuary for examination. None was found infected.

I'm sure everyone knows The Plague Race by Edward Marriott which recounts the arrival in Hong Kong of the well known Japanese bacteriologist, Professor Shibasaburo Kitasato at the same time as the French researcher, Dr Alexandre Yersin, a former assistant to Pasteur. Kitasato had been officially invited. He and his team were accorded every convenience and lavishly entertained, while Yersin, who was on the right track, was given no facilities for his experiments and his correct conclusions about the source of the Plague were pooh-poohed.

My interest in the Plague and the measures taken to combat it is from the fact that my 23-year old grandfather, Charley Warren, arrived in Hong Kong in 1895 in the wake of the big 1894 Plague epidemic, and was immediately pressed into a job as a Overseer in the Public Works Department, despite being a patissier. Brits were urgently needed as Overseers in PWD whatever their actual skills. It can't have been a pleasant job, as 1900 finds him as an Inspector of Nuisances, (rats?), but from this beginning, my grandfather managed to build a successful career in sanitary engineering in Hong Kong, and a company that was still building drains there in 1941. 

Jill

 

 

Galbraith Moffat, a Sanitary Inspector of some 3 and a half years standing was amongst the few Europeans to die of plague.  It was first thought that he had malaria, but then plague was diagnosed - in all probability contracted from removing very decomposed bodies from houses.  He died on 14th June 1896.