Morrison, William (1847-d.1853, HK)

updated

b.[n.d.]-d.1853, Hong Kong. Private practice, England nlt. 1847. Recruited by Home Government and sent to Hong Kong 1847. Hong Kong Government, Colonial Surgeon [1] 1847-53. Died from an abscess of the liver (or of malarial fever) and was buried at the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley 1853.

[1] Morrison was the first London appointed Colonial Surgeon. He was said to have a thriving medical practice in England before accepting the engagement in Hong Kong. Records show that his salary was raised by £100 in 1848. Colonial Surgeon in Hong Kong at the time was permitted to run his private practice simultaneously while holding the public office. Morrison was most oftenly accused of ignoring the office of the Colonial Surgeon while focusing only in his very lucrative private practice.

McCoy, Robert W. (1873-d.[h.a.], HKG)

updated August 29, 2013

FRCS (Irel.). Hong Kong 1873. Hong Kong Government, Colonial Surgeon January 14, 1873. Died in office due to illness contracted in Hong Kong.

[The government paid the costs of passage to England of his widow and children totaling $874.5.]

Selected bibliography: The Hong Kong Gazette, January 18, 1873, Notice #9; February 21, 1874.

Macfarlane, Harold (1903-d.1919, HK)

updated June 30, 2013.

b. July 15, 1876 - d. February 7, 1919, Hong Kong.

MBBS (Edin.); LRCP (Lond.); LRCS (Edin.); DPH (Oxon.). Hong Kong September 1903. Hong Kong Government, Assistant Medical Officer of Health September 25, 1903; Government Bacteriologist [1] April 30, 1909 - 1918; Acting Principal Civil Medical Officer (vice John Taylor Connell Johnson) January 24, 1919. Lecturer in Chemistry and Physics 1905-07, Chemistry 1907-1909, HKCMC. One of the nine HKCMC teaching staff transferred to HKU when it became established in 1912 [2]. HKU Senate 1912. Publications: The Stegomyia Survey in Hong Kong, Bulletin of Entomological Research, February 1915, Vol. #6, Issue #1. Club: Hong Kong Club. Died suddenly on February 7, 1919.

s/o William Alexander MacFarlane, MD.
m. Laura Gertrude Massy [3] August 5, 1903.

[1] While working at Bacteriological Institute, Macfarlane took charge of a government investigation of Stegomyia mosquitoes, the findings was later published. He also made a study, collaborating with Adam Gibson, MRCVS, the Colonial Veterinary Surgeon, on flies in Hong Kong.

[2] HKCMC teaches transferred to the staff of the Faculty of Medicine, HKU in 1912 were: Francis William Clark, Charles Forsyth, Arthur C. Franklin, Gregory Paul Jordan, Frederick Theobald Keyt, Wilfred Vincent Miller Koch, Harold MacFarlane, Oswald Marriott and Wilfred William Pearse.

[3] Laura Gertrude Massy was the daughter of the Rev. Xavier Peel Massy, who was the Rector of Colinton, Edinburgh. The year next following Macfarlane's death, she remarried Philip Peveril John Wodehouse on October 6, 1920. She died on February 2, 1959.

Selected bibliography: Dafydd Emrys Evans (1987) Constancy of Purpose, Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. / The Hong Kong Government Gazette, September 25, 1903, Notice #629; October 15, 1909, Appt. #646; January 24, 1919, Appt. #42. / Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences Society, Plague, SARS, and the Story of Medicine in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006. / Lucas, Edward Verrall, Who's Who in the Far East, 1906-7, Hong Kong: 1907. / The Peerage [internet].

Dill, Francis (1844-d.1846, HK)

updated

The First Colonial Surgeon to Die in Office.

d. October 1846, Hong Kong. China bef. 1844. Hong Kong nlt.1844. Hong Kong Government; Hospital Surgeon to the Colony (vice Alexander Anderson) 1844; position reconstituted as Colonial Surgeon. President, CMCS (vice Alfred Green Gayton Tucker, deceased) 1845. Died suddenly from liver complication (or malarial fever) October 1846.

[Dill, as in the case of Anderson, was a local recruit; he received a reduced salary of £600 p.a., which was cut back further to £500 in 1845. The primary responsibility of the Colonial Surgeon was to look after policemen and prisoners in the goal]

[Two months before his death, Francis Dill proclaimed Hong Kong to be the healthiest British Colony in the Orient.]

Bankier, Robert Austin (1842-d.1853, HK)

updated November 6, 2013

d. June 22, 1853, Hong Kong; bur. Hong Kong Cemetery, Happy Valley. MD (Glas.) 1843. RN, Assistant Surgeon 1836; Surgeon 1843; Blane Medal [1] 1843; HMS. Herald May 29, 1838; HMS Pelorus 1839; HMS Bentinck 1841; HMS Winchester; Hong Kong May 1942.

HONG KONG, May 1842. RN Surgeon, HMS Blenheim; Surgeon In-Charge, HMS Alligator (hospital ship), later HMS Minden (hospital ship). Founding Member, China Medico-Chirurgical Society 1845 [2]

Siblings: 1. James Bankier, b.[n.d.]-d.1871; MD (Glas.) 1831; Royal Navy, Surgeon [3].

Neopomacentrus bankieri. Credit: Fish Album

[Bankier was a noted naturist. He collected a specimen of tropical fish in Hong Kong, which was described as a new species. Neopomacentrus bankieri, commonly known as Chinese Demoiselle, was named after him.]  

[I am in debt to Andrew Marsh for sharing valuable information about Dr. Bankier. I knew neither about the Blane Medal nor Dr. James Bankier until Andrew wrote me on August 5, 2013. Andrew's grandmother, Dr. Edyth Marsh MBChB BSC (nee Bankier) was the granddaughter of Dr. James Bankier.]

The Blane Medal. Credit: Stack's Bowers

[1] The Blane Medal, also known as the Gilbert Blane Gold Medal, was founded by Gilbert Blane in 1830. Two gold medals were to be conferred once in every two years on two Royal Navy medical officers who produced the most outstanding journals “evincing the most distinguished prrofs of skill, diligence, humanity, and learning in the exercises of their professional duties.” The panel of judges were the Presidents of the Royal Colleges of Physicians (London), and Surgeons (England), and the Director-General of the Medical Department of the Navy. The first medals were given in 1832. The co-awardee with Bankier in 1843 was William Lindsay. Gilbert Blane, b.1749-d.1834, 1st Baronet of Blanefield, was a naval surgeon (and later private practitioner) who received his MD degree from the University of Glasgow in 1778.

[2] The China Medico-Chirurgical Society was founded at a meeting held on May 13, 1845 at the Hong Kong residence of Francis Dill. There were11 Founding Members, and they were: Alfred Green G. Tucker (President), Benjamin Hobson (Secretary), James Hume Young (Treasurer), Robert Austin Bankier, George K. Barton, Francis Dill, William Aurelius Harland, Henry Holgate, Kenneth McKenzie Kennedy, Samuel Marjoribanks, and Peter Young. By the design of Harland and Bankier, the society was renamed Philosophical Society, and in January 1847, it was reconstituted as the Asiatic Society of China.

[3] Assistant Surgeon 1827; Surgeon 1834; Staff Surgeon 1859; publications: Essay on the Origin, Progress, and Treatment of Cholera; with Remarks on Beriberi and Diet, 1835; had issue: 1. son [s.n.] 1859.

Selected bibliography: Calendar of the Royal College of Surgeon of England, London: Taylor and Francis, 1918. Find A Grave [internet]. Haultain, Charles (Ed.), The New Naval List, London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1840. Naval Chronicle for 1941, London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1841. The Navy List 1834, 1841. Rydings, H.A., Transactions of the China Medico-Chirurgical Society, 1845-6. William Loney RN › Naval Surgeons [internet].

Chan Fai-kwong (1902-d.1903 HK)

updated December 26, 2013.

HONG KONG. LMSHK 1902. Assistant to the Government Bacteriologist, William Hunter, October 14, 1902-1903 [1]. Chan died suddenly of Acute Yellow Atrophy January 31, 1903.

[1] Three Chinese, all holders of LMSHK, were appointed as Assistant to the Government Bacteriologist. They were: Chan Fai-kwong, Ho Ko-tsun 何高俊, Lee Yin-sze 李賢士. This was the first instance Chinese were appointed; the positions were previously held by Japanese.
[2] LMSHK was the qualification awarded to graduates of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese HKCMC (1887-1912). Holders of LMSHK were not authorized to practice as private practitioners until July 8, 1908 [a]. From that day on they were permitted to practice as "exempted persons", but not to be listed in the Medical Register.

[a] There were hospital appointments, more particularly at missionary or charitable hospitals, prior to 1908. For instance, Kwan King-leung 關景良, LMSHK 1893, was permitted to practice at the Alice Memorial Hospital 1893.

Selected bibliography: Hong Kong Government, Report of the Government Bacteriologist for the Year 1903. Hong Kong Government, Report of the Principal Civil Medical Officer for the Year 1902.