HEALTH OF THE COLONY.
435
13. I have 'omitted the usual tables showing the number of deaths ainongst the European and Chinese members of the community attributable to filth as being out of date, these matters are more fully dealt with in the Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health to the Sanitary Board.
Small-pox-was practically epidemic during the first three months of the year, it was so prevalent in February that on the 15th of that month No. 4 Health District was declared an area infected with this disease.
A house to house visitation was made, free vaccination stations were appointed, and the attention of the inhabitants was drawn by printed notices to the different places where this was being carried out, the Chinese being especially urged to take this opportunity of protecting themselves against this
disease.
In all 199 cases were notified during the year, 178 of these occurring in the first three months. Plague. Unfortunately the Colony was again attacked in an epidemic form by this disease which was most prevalent during the months February to June inclusive; out of 1,320 cases reported during the year 1.298 occurred in these months.
Dividing the population into Chinese and non-Chinese it is found that the mortality amongst the non-Chinese attacked was 65.3 per cent., whereas that amongst the Chinese was 89.6 per cent.
The disease attained its maximum in the month of May; this was also the case in the 1896 out- break, indeed in this Colony the months of maximum mean temperature have always been followed by a material reduction in the number of cases.
Unfortunately more Europeans were attacked than was the case in 1896, the numbers being 26 as against 16.
It is worthy of note that an outbreak of rinderpest (cattle plague) occurred amongst the cattle at the Pokfulam Dairy Farm in the months of February and March and that during the earlier part of the year the neighbouring provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi were overrun with this disease which killed off large number of cattle.
A similar outbreak of rinderpest prevailed before the 1894 and 1896 outbreaks.
In the months of November and December, 1897, an epidemic of foot-and-mouth discase prevailed, all the dairy farins of the Colony being affected-native and European.
Brigade-Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel WEIR reports an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease as pre-
ceding the first epidemic of plague at Bombay.
In 1896 an epidemic occurred amongst the pigs imported from Pakhoi.
Pork, in many cases only sun-dried, is one of the staple foods of the Chinese.
Dr. WILM and myself examined several of these pigs and the symptoms and post mortem appear- ances were similar to those of rinderpest in cattle, we obtained a diplococcus from the nasal mucus, spleen and mesenteric glands of these pigs almost identical with the plague bacillus in man.
In 1898, I found a like bacillus in the spleen and mesenteric glands of cattle that were killed on account of rinderpest.
I am informed that an epidemic amongst pigs occurred in and around Canton in the early part of 1898 before plague broke out in these districts.
Dr. MACDONALD, of Wuchow, writes me that plague is epidemic there this year and that preceding the outbreak in man there was an epidemic of rinderpest amongst the native cattle. Any facts like these are worthy of record as bearing possibly on the etiology of this prevalent disease.
Other diseases,--as is usually the case in plague years, were less prevalent, Malarial fevers judging by the admissions to the Government Civil Ilospital being especially so. Excluding the deaths from plague, the death rate of the Colony would have been 17.74 per 1,000 as against 18-85 in 1897.
General sanitary condition of the Colony.-Though much has been done of late years to improve the sanitary condition of the Colony by
:-
(a) The removal of illegal cocklofts, mezzanine floors and backyard obstructions ;
(b) The concreting of the Chinese houses not only in Victoria but at Hung Hom, Yaumati
and Tai Kok Tsui in British Kowloon;
(c) The steady improvement of defective house drains;
(d) The closure of polluted wells, &c. ;
no one acquainted with the elements of sanitation and the conditions of overcrowding, filth and ignorance that exists, can fail to see that it will be years before those conditions necessary for the maintenance of the public health are satisfactory established in this City.
The Insanitary Properties Commission who had been sitting since August, 1896, issued their report in March of last year, and in it they state--
"That there are many insanitary properties in the Colony, and dwellings which, in their "condition, are unfit for human habitation.
present
"The back portions of a number of houses visited by us are dark, il ventilated, extremely dirty "and in some cases mere dens of filth. The interior of the cubicles or sub-divisions of the living rooms was such that in the great majority of cases their contents could only be seen by the aid of an "artificial light."