Edwardian Styled Old Pathology Institute (The Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences)

Here comes the dog days of the summer and the thought of having to walk from sea level up to the mid-levels’ altitude for the Museum of Medical Sciences was daunting enough. So, instead, I opted to walk from Central MTR station, via the escalators, up to Caine Road. I then headed to the Sheung Wan direction on Caine Road, then took one flight of stairs down to Caine Lane to arrive at the museum. I adored the museum building at my first sight. Under the broad daylight of mid-July, it stands proud, glistening in its historical significance as an antique monument that once gave home to Hong Kong’s first Bacteriological Institute. The urgency of studying bacteriology became apparent after Hong Kong emerged from the bubonic plague of 1894. The epidemic terrified the Chinese community of Hong Kong, equally so in both health and cultural dimensions. The bubonic plague, also known as black death, caused significant deaths and enormous suffering. The Chinese people at the time also resisted the Hong Kong Government’s efforts to forcefully sanitize their homes and to handle the corpses. It was a political and health crisis in one. In 1906, the Bacteriological Institute began serving as a key medical institution in Hong Kong that addressed infectious diseases and bacterial pathology. The need to institute such a facility arose as a public health lesson learned from the bubonic plague. For decades, it was a laboratory of infectious pathology, until the 1950s. It then served as a vaccine production center until the 1970s. The two-story building comes in the Edwardian style of architecture and a tiled gabled roof. Its exterior lined in red bricks, the building features also arched windows with ornamental lining. Viewed in the front, central bays with arched façades and Romanesque columns adorn both levels, as windows on the top level and the entrance gateway on the ground level. “The pilasters and attached columns framing the windows have iconic capitals.” #architecture #hongkonghistory #bubonicplague #bacteriology #oldpathologyinstitute #infectiousdiseases #medicalhistory #declaredmonument