Dec. 4.
Ir is pleasant to turn from the' in political and social tribulations of China to the record of ster-Itng good work and solid results contained in Dr. Wu Lien-teh's thirteenth annual report of the: Manchurian Plague Service Bureau, which we publish today. Year by year we look forward to these reports with' agreeable anticipation and we ere never disappointed. Many. people in China have vivid recollections of that terrible outbreak of pneumonic plague, then, we think practically new to science, in Manchuria in 1911, when people literally died like flies; and how Dr. Wu Lien-teh sprang into world renown, although already well known to: the medical world of Cambridge, Paris and Berlin, by his dis covery of the tarbogan, a sort of marmot much sought for its skin in North Manchuria and Siberia, as the source of disease. Subsequently Dr. Wu was appointed to organize the bureau' which he still directs and to him' end his devoted fetlow-workers, labouring always in difficulty' and with slender resources, it due that the world, if, not imjune from another outbreak of plague, knows at any rate ex-' actly what to do should one 1 occur, This year's report casts much farther afield than Manchuria and there is ong piisage which should be read in Shanghai with special interest. "Dr. Wu was hhere during the cholera outbreak' the: Waterworks water ip August and took samples of
with apparently satisfactory results, But he adds:—visions ale centres like The constant threat of cholera i
ity po health authorities, and. i banghsi places a great responsi
tion, may be obtained by earlier noti-hoped that mor, effective coopers feajion and enforcement of preven, tive measures without unnecessary red tape oF selfish considerations. The suggestion is timely and i ally worded should give no offence in quarters whence reform must come. Some, months ago Shanghai w unpleasantly startled by the dis. covery that it ranks, we think, in the third class from an international sanitary point of view. For a city whose welfare is so much bound up in sea-borne trade this is a serious matter, and steps were taken to co-ordinate the various health services ithe, whole district so that united measures might be enforced for the benefit of all and the many should not suffer for shortcomings of the few. At the outset it worked as if good results might ensue, but we fear that nothing' effective has yet been done, With the best of good will in sll parties, there are so many administrative areas in the! Shanghai district and all thickly populated, that the prolem is extremely difficult. But it is one of health, not polities, jad one hopes that Dr. Wu's comments may help to a solution, Apart from its intrinsic interest, the report is useful as a reminder of the quantity of, steady work that is being done in China behind the smoke and dust of Tuchun politics. Probably the Manchurian Plague Service is the best example of such work; it is indeed a thing of which. any country might Freud. But in many directions men are striving to ameliorate conditions, and even manifestations of feel ich are not precisely pleasant in themselves, are founded upon changes which must ultimately make for good. The word "student," for example, connotes in foreign ears some thing the reverse of attractive. But the enormous demand for education now seen in Chin extending even to girls, who for: merly were never supposed to need such "fads," is most surely Ito be respect: Ranized public opinion to which has given birth, though erratic jand extravagant' still in many ways, must mould the nation's destinies as they have never sing through nsition, the effects of which are inevitably uncomfortable all round. But things are being done which point to brighter future; and the Manchurian Plague Service is-by no means the only phenomenon fi found solid hopes of better days in store,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.