338
The dispensary at Kau Ue Fong for the central part of the town was completed on the 4th September at a cost of $1,732.50. The cost of the building and of the furniture and equipment will not be a charge on the dispensary funds, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Họ KOM-TONG who made a gift of $2,000 for that purpose. The site cost $3,391. One-third of this has already been promised and I am sanguine that the remaining two-thirds will be forthcoming. On the 27th May a dispensary was opened in Yaumati at the request of the inhabitants, and another at Hunghom on the 17th June. Well attended public meetings were held in both places to mark the opening. Table IX a shews the work that has been done during the year. In Victoria the number of patients treated is three times the number treated in the nine months of 1905 during which the dispensaries were open; the number of death certificates, four times. The number of infants brought to the office is less, but it is satisfactory to find that 867 infants were treated at the five dispensaries. The practice of leaving dead bodies in the streets is more prevalent than it was in 1905 but this is due as will be seen from the subjoined table to the increase in infectious diseases.
Infauts.
DUMPED BODIES.
Others.
VICTORIA.
Plague
Small-pox
Total.
Cases.
Cases.
i
1905......
410
176
614
160
28
1906.
530
266
796
611
133
DUMPED BODIES.
Infants.
Others.
KOWLOON.
Plague
Small-pox
Total.
Cases.
Cases.
1905..
171
88
259
96
275
176
451
220
35
1906....
Table IX c is an account of the money which passes through the Registrar General's hands. In Victoria all receipts are paid to the Registrar General and all payments made by him. In the case of the dispensaries in the Kowloon Peninsula, the salaries of the doctors and clerks are paid by the Registrar General, the wages of the coolies and rents of buildings are approved by him, but the payments of these items and of miscellaneous charges are made- by the local committee. The actual receipts and expenditure of each dispensary are given in Table IX d.
12.-District Plague Hospitals.
Thirty-three patients were received into the Kowloon Plague Hospital mostly frour Yaumati. The hospital was built as was mentioned in my last report at the expense of Kowloon City and neighbourhood, but the cost of maintenance during the year was shared. by Hunghom and Yaumati. The hospital-which was a matshed-disappeared in the typhoon of the 18th September. There is every prospect of the local committees in the Kowloon Peninsula opening district plague hospitals in 1907.
A district plague hospital was opened at Nos. 63 & 65 Third Street in Saiyingpun, and 18 persons were treated there. It is managed by the local committee and is under the charge of the public dispensary doctor. The Government has provided a sum of $2,000 for 190* as a grant-in-aid to these hospitals.