263
THE GOVERNMENT PUBLIC MORTUARY.
Total number of Post-Mortem Examinations held during the year 1903, 2,326.
The total number of Post-Mortem Examinations held has diminished by 490, compared with the Return of 1902. This decrease is accounted for mainly by the absence of an epidemic of Choler during 1903, and the arrangements made by the Government recently to have necropsies performed on cases of uncertified death in the Kowloon district.
Some idea as to the actual work requiring to be done daily at the Public Mortuary may be gathered from the following table :—
Average per diem.
Month.
January,
February,
March,
April,
May,
June, July, August, September,
October,
November,
December,
Total,
No. of Bodies
per
month.
163
A
176
6
213
6
355
12
474
15
240
8
144
154
5
117
132
77
81
3
3
2,326
This estimate is made counting 7 days in every week.
On several days during the month of May, when the epidemic of Plague was at its height, the daily average of bodies received into the Mortuary was 39.
RETURN OF CAUSES OF DEATH DURING 1903.
J.-Total General Diseases, .....
II. Local Diseases :-
Of the Nervous System,
12
Circulatory Systein,
38
Respiratory System,
265
Digestive System,
38
་་
Urinary Systein,
Generative System,
1.622
-366
III.-Total Injuries,
IV. Total Decomposed Bodies,.
123
215
2,326
GENERAL DISEASES.
Small-pox,
22
Plague-
Bubonic Type, ......
:.
529
Septicamic, Type,
339
Pneumonic Type,
42
Total Plague,
-917
Enteric Fever,
1
Cholera,
3
Diarrhoea (cause unknown),
6:
Dysentery,
I
Beri-beri,
160
Malaria,
93
Sloughing Phagedana,
1
Pyæmia,
I
Septicemia,
6
Curried forward,.....1,274