HEALTH
119
of the New Territories. In 1953, 80 per cent of the blind population of the Colony had become blind before reaching the age of 10. With the application of modern drugs, special attention to the condition of avitaminosis and free treatment to those under 12 years, the position is now comparable with conditions in advanced countries with the onset of blindness in 80 per cent of cases occur- ring after the age of 50.
TRAINING
The University of Hong Kong's degrees of MB, BS have been recognized for registration by the General Medical Council of the United Kingdom since 1911. Post-graduate clinical training is available in the Colony for higher qualifications awarded by most of the examining bodies in Great Britain, and is supervised by a panel for post-graduate medical education, consisting of university and government staff members. Due mainly to this programme, over three-quarters of the specialist appointments in the Medical and Health Department are now held by locally-recruited staff. Facilities at the university and at the Queen Mary Hospital were further expanded to provide an intake of 120 medical students. During the year arrangements were made for the primary examina- tion for Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh to be held in Hong Kong. Plans are also being made for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons to hold an examination here.
Hong Kong has no local facilities for training in dentistry but a government dental scholarship scheme each year enables a number of students from Hong Kong to study dentistry overseas and ultimately to qualify as dental surgeons.
There are three government hospital schools of nursing. Those at the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary hospitals are general schools, while the one at the Castle Peak Hospital is a psychiatric nursing school. Training at these schools is in English but there are also approved schools at the Tung Wah hospitals, the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, the Caritas Hospital and the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, in all of which instruction is in Cantonese. Examinations are held by the Hong Kong Nursing Board and there is full reciprocity of registration between the Hong Kong Board and the General Nursing Council of England and Wales. Most female nurses, on completion of general nursing