CHAPTER IX
Difficulty of Enforcing Quarantine Regulations—Greedy Officials “Eat” Relief Funds—Americans Stand Alone to Face the Foe—The Emergency Cholera Hospital—The Inspection Officers—We Decide to Use the Shelter—A Pathetic Case—The Jesus Man—Gratitude of the Koreans—The New Church—The Murder of the Queen—Testimony of Foreigners—The Official Report.
And now again the rod was to fall. The disease began with terrible violence, men in full vigor in the morning were corpses at noon, several members of the same family often dying the same day. It cropped out in one neighborhood after another with a steadily marked increase every day, that was frightful in its unrelenting, unswerving ferocity. The Japanese and many of the more enlightened Koreans took the alarm early, and seeking the counsel of European and American physicians planned to establish quarantine and sanitary regulations for the whole country, but as an astute young Korean sadly remarked, “It is easy enough to make the laws, it is more than doubtful whether they can be enforced.”
If officials and soldiers are sent to enforce quarantine, there is little doubt among those who know customs and people that only too many of them will be susceptible to a very small bribe. When the necessity for quarantining Seoul from Chemulpo was mentioned, the high officials themselves said it would be impossible on account of the importance of the trade between the two places. One instance will show the hopelessness of the attempt to carry out sanitary regulations.
In the effort to prevent the enormous and insane consumption of green apples, melons and cucumbers, the sale of these articles was forbidden with a penalty for buyer and seller, and notices of the law posted everywhere. And yet, soon after, my husband passed a stand where they were being sold in large numbers, over which one of these very notices was hung, and several policemen among the buyers were munching the forbidden fruit with a calm relish, edifying to behold. It is due to the government to say that they seemed thoroughly awakened to the situation and were doing all in their power, but were handicapped by the deplorable corruption of many officials. Twenty thousand yen (ten thousand dollars) were granted to fix up a temporary emergency cholera hospital, enforce sanitary laws and prevent the advance of the plague, but this money was, to use a common Korean phrase, “eaten” by greedy underlings on all hands. In the preparation of the hospital, more than twice the number of carpenters needed were employed, and these men passed their time making little articles for private sale, or in standing about doing nothing. A number of petty officials were hired to do little, and improved on their commission by doing nothing but receive their pay.
At a general meeting of the physicians then in the city, European, American and Japanese, Dr. Avison having been chosen by vote director of this emergency hospital and the sanitary work, the Japanese all withdrew, saying they did not care to work under a Westerner, and in the end the Americans only were left to face the foe.
After many discouragements and hindrances an old barracks building was roughly prepared to receive patients, and a corps of nurses and doctors, composed of quite a number of missionaries (Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, with the assistance of hired Koreans) was formed. The building was very poorly fitted up for such an exigency, the haste with which it was necessary to get it ready, and the character of the place, precluded the possibility of making it very suitable for the purpose. It was open, damp and chilly, with no means of warming or secluding the patients. It was only scantily furnished with such absolute necessities as could be had at short notice in the city. And think not, Oh civilized medical community in America! that “necessities” according to your ideas are synonymous with “necessities” according to our possibilities in Asia. Perhaps you have a fossilized idea that beds and sheets and pillows are necessities. By no means. Our patients lay on the floor, covered with small cotton wool rugs, and back-breaking business it was to nurse them.
But the discouragements connected with our work was not merely the lack of conveniences and almost dire necessities, or the want of proper enforcement of sanitary regulations and of co-operation, and although Dr. Avison and the foreign staff under him worked heroically, and with unwearied devotion, it was an unequal struggle. The majority of natives are not willing to go to hospitals, and it would have been dangerous to try to force them, while many will not permit foreign doctors to treat them even in their homes, or else use Korean medicines with ours. But alas! in many cases the disease is so violent as to defy all that science, aided by every advantage, can do.
It is the most desperately, deadly thing I ever saw, and often medicines seem useless to do more than slightly defer the ultimate result. The poison attacks the nerve centers at once, and every organ is affected. Terrible cramps contract the muscles, the heart fails, the extremities grow cold, the pulse becomes imperceptible, the mind wanders, or suddenly, without previous symptoms, the victim falls and dies at once. Or, after the most violent symptoms of the disease have disappeared, vomiting and pain have ceased, the pulse has become almost normal and the patient nearly ready to be discharged, a mysterious change comes, and the poor victim dies of pneumonia, uræmic convulsions, or some of the other sequellæ of this frightful disease.
Mr. Underwood was placed in charge of inspection offices, which were opened in different districts over the whole city, and all cases reported there received immediate attention. Several of his young Christians were trained by him to carry on this work, he himself at first going out with them, hunting up infected localities, using disinfectants, and teaching the helpers and residents how to purify the premises. These young men worked indefatigably, with intelligence, enthusiasm and courage. The inspectors and all the doctors and nurses wore a badge, consisting of the red cross over the Korean flag, so that even in heathen Korea the sign of the cross was carried everywhere, and dominated the emblem of the Korean government.