No. 70.
[ 21 ]
Appendix 5.
MEDICAL DEpartment,
TAIPÓ, 4th March, 1901.
SIR, I have the honour to submit to you my annual Report upon my medical work done in the New Territory during the year 1900.
The total number of patients attended by me during the year was 1,267, of which 961 were new and 306 old cases. They are shown in the following table:-
Villagers,
CASES AMONG
Police Department during visits,..
Do.
at Táipó,
Civil Department at Táipó,
Villagers about Táipó,..
NEW.
OLD.
TOTAL.
148
48
196
174
63
237
129
129
42
42
168
195
663
961
306
1,267
The number of cases of vaccination performed by me during the year was 78. The four native vaccinators who have been practising for many years among the villagers show a return of 562 children successfully vaccinated by them.
With the intention of being able to bring, as nearly as possible, all the children in the Territory under immunity, these vaccinators are told to practise chiefly among the villagers who live far away from Police Stations and are, therefore, unable to come to me.
In order to avoid the danger of infection from the lymph taken directly from children to children, as they used to do, I supply these vaccinators with the Hongkong calf lymph.
"Fook Tau" the old method of acquiring immunity from small-pox is still practised among some of the Hakka people here by purposely blowing the dry scabs from the eruptions of small-pox into the nostrils of children to set up the disease all over the body in a more or less severe form. This is a very dangerous operation, and fatality is sometimes the result. I have strongly dissuaded them from doing this, and I now suggest that the authorities should take its suppression into consi- deration.
The worst season of malarial fever in the year was from May to the middle of November. Its prevalence coincided remarkably with the rainy season. This is due, I believe, to the paddy fields being filled with water at the time, and consequently affording au efficient breeding place to the anopheles larva. Towards the end of the year, when the weather was dry, the cases of malarial fever declined with marked rapidity while the larvæ could no longer be found in the fields.
I found the auopheles larvæ, which are now believed to be the carrier of malarial germs, in enormous quantities in the paddy fields close to all the Police Stations, sepecially at Shattaukok and Táipó. In the latter place, for instance, 4 or 5 dozen of the larvæ (anopheles) can, during the height of the season, be collected from every 10 square feet of water. For the information of Dr. THOMSON I regularly forward to him the specimens of the larvæ for his examination.
As inalarial fever was so obstinately prevalent among the Police in spite of every precaution being strictly observed, in order to improve the health of the Statious in the ensuing season, the main cause, I think, should be removed as far as possible. I therefore urge that the Government should take immediate steps, while the fields are still dry, to buy up all the fields close to Stations to the extent of at least one hundred yards from the Station and to fill them up with earth, or, to order that the fields in this vicinity be converted into kitchen gardens where stagnant water is of no necessity.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
HO NAI HOP,