PUBLIC HEALTH
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further guided by Health Officers of the Medical Depart- ment, who exercise statutory powers under the public health legislation. The work of the District Health Officers is direct- ly controlled by the Senior Health Officer, who also exercises supervisory control over Medical Officers in charge of other health activities such as Maternal and Child Health Services, the School Health Service, etc.
The estimated expenditure for the financial year 1956/57 is $32,849,490. To this should be added subventions totalling $7,473,020 to the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, the Anti- Tuberculosis Association, Mission to Lepers, Hong Kong Auxiliary, and other similar bodies. The combined estimated expenditure of the Medical Department and the medical subventions represents approximately 8.96% of the Colony's total estimated revenue. Estimated capital expenditure for the Medical Department is $2,313,000.
GENERAL HEALTH
The Colony continues to be extremely overcrowded although good progress is now being made in housing development. Industrial expansion continues at a rapid rate, particularly in the New Territories. Many new factories are of a satisfactory standard, several providing housing and medical clinics for their employees; others still remain in unsuitable temporary premises and cannot be described as satisfactory.
In 1956, as in the previous three years, the Colony has remained free from any case of the six quarantinable diseases i.e. smallpox, cholera, plague, epidemic typhus, yellow fever and relapsing fever. There were no noteworthy outbreaks of any of the other communicable diseases. The incidence of notifiable diseases in general decreased, with a corresponding decrease in mortality from 17,940 cases and 3,095 deaths in 1955 to 16,071 cases and 2,870 deaths in 1956. The largest variations from the figures of the previous year are to be