In the "foreign district," a missionary named George Mackay established the first hospital for Western medicine in Taiwan; it was here that in 1878 the first case of paragonimiasis in the world was diagnosed.
俗稱「砲台埔」的洋樓區，有馬偕博士開設的台灣第一家西醫院──滬尾偕醫館，一八七八年在這裡，發現了世界第一樁肺蛭病的案例。