AN APPEAL TO THE BENEVOLENT,

Otago Witness, Issue 2403, 22 March 1900, Page 9

AN APPEAL TO THE BENEVOLENT,

£1100 NEEDED FOR A HOSPITAL FOR

CHANDPORE,

The New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society, which has two stations in Tipperah, Eastern Bengal, India, has just issued an urgent appeal to all its supporters and friends for the sum of £1100 required for the erection of a hospital at Chandpore, their principal centre of influence. India is wretchedly supplied with medical and surgical facilities, and thousands perish annually for lack of the advantages which our least towns enjoy. Government dispensaries reach only 5 per cent, of the population, the rest are left to native medicine men, whose methods are of the crudest and cruellest. In Bengal only onefifteenth of the people arc within five miles of a dispensary, and at oest, there is but one dispensary for every 145,000 souls. The Baptist Missionary Society of this colony is working in a district peopled by nearly a million Hindxis and Mahommedans, and is the only Christian agency among this dense mass of people. Its first medical missionary, Dr Charles North, received his education at the Otago University, and secured the diplomas of L.R.C.P. and M.R.C.S. in London in 1898. During his first nine months in India he performed 13 operations under chloroform, 21 with or without cocaine, and seven on the eye. His patients were of various castes, and some came from long_ distances ; but his abilities have had. no fair scope, because he has had no accommodation for those who haye 1 sought his help. The hospital which the society desires to erect will, it is estimated, cost at least a thousand pounds (£1000). A very suitable site has already been secured at a cost of £100. If the requisite amount is subscribed, the building willlbe put in hand as soon as the next cold season sets in. Dr North's pitiful account of the sufferings endured by the natives — sufferings which their own kabirajes are unable to alleviate, but which European science and skill could readily remove, adds great emphasis to the plea of the society. He has the frequent pain of sending away uni'elieved patients whom he could successfully treat if he had a hospital in which to receive them. Contributions towards this beneficent and meritorious work may be sent to the treasurer of the society, Mr A. Hoby, L.D.S., Willis street, Wellington, or to the secretary, Mr H. H. Driver, Chaucer's Head Bookroom s Dunedin.