On and Off Duty in Annam ¹

Abstract

THIS is the work of an Englishwoman, who accompanied her husband, a, doctor in the French Colonial Service, to Nhatrang, on the coast of Annam. On landing in Saigon, the capital of Cochin China, she recounts her impressions of the city in terms much more favourable than one, would expect who had visited the place in its early stages of development. It was then a scattered, sickly settlement; it is now “the Paris of the East,” with its wide, well-appointed boulevards and imposing public buildings, the Governor's palace, cathedral, theatre, and hotels, after the best models in Europe. All the more praise to the Government for the transformation of this once swampy wilderness into probably the fairest city in further Asia, equipped with all the latest scientific appliances in effective operation. Its Pasteur Institute has done admirable work in arresting the ravages of plague, cholera, and diseases common to the tropics. The author and her husband were sent to Nhatrang, where the doctor was appointed assistant to the president of the Pasteur Institute, Dr. Yersin, who was one of Pasteur's first pupils, and justified his being chosen to carry out colonial work by his original discoveries, and his energy successfully displayed in other directions.