Reorganizing Hospital Space: The 1894 Plague Epidemic in Hong Kong and the Germ Theory

Abstract

This paper examined whether the preventive measures taken by the Hong Kong’s colonial authorities were legitimate during the 1894 Hong Kong plague epidemic, and illuminated the correlation between the plague epidemic and hospital space in Hong Kong in the late 19th century. The quarantine measures taken by the colonial authorities were neither a clear-cut victory for Western medicine nor for a rational quarantine based on scientific medical knowledge. Hong Kong’s medical officials based on the miasma theory, and focused only on house-to-house inspections and forced quarantine or isolation, without encouraging people to wear masks and without conducting disinfection. Even after Hong Kong plague spread, the Hong Kong’s colonial authorities were not interested in what plague bacilli were, but in where they were to be found and how to prevent and control an outbreak of the disease. The germ theory brought significant changes to the disease classification system. Until the 1890s, Hong Kong’s colonial authority had classified cause of death mainly on the basis of symptoms, infectious diseases, parts of the body and diseases of systems. Microbiological analysis of the cause of death in Hong Kong was started by Hunter, a bacteriologist, in 1902. He used bacteriological tests with a microscope to analyze the cause of death. New disease recognition and medical recognition brought large changes to hospital space as well. In particular, from the 1880s to the early 1900s, Western medical circles witnessed shifts from miasma theory to the germ theory, thereby influencing Hong Kong’s hospital spaces. As the germ theory took ground in Hong Kong in 1894, the bacteriological laboratory and isolation ward became inevitable facilities, and hospital space were reorganized accordingly. However, the colonial authorities and local elites’ strategy was different. As a government bacteriologist, Hunter established a central facility to unify several laboratories and to manage urban space from ouside the hospital. On the contrary, the Tungwah Hospital tried to transform hospital space with isolation ward and Receiving Ward System as the eclectic form of Chinese and Western medicine. The 1894 Hong Kong plague promoted the introduction of germ theory and the reorganization of hospital space.