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on this subject and said that I proposed to act on the advice of the Sanitary Board who had adopted Dr. Clark's report.
4.
With regard to paragraph 5 every effort is being made to keep rats out of dwellings, but the filling up of hollow walls is regarded as impracticable. In this connection hollow walls mean walls which have interstices in the brickwork caused by imperfect building. An illustration of this kind of wall is shew facing page 396 of the Transactions of the Hong Kong Medical Congress 1912. In the older parts of the City many walls are built in this objectionable way. But it is not known which walls are so built. To ascertain where they exist | would entail much laborious labour and work which would endanger weak walls. When found it is probable that no other method than that of complete re-construction would be possible to remedy the defecta.
Steps are taken to remedy other imperfections
in buildings which facilitate the entry of rats, and every effort is made to prevent overcrowding and to keep dwellings free from accumulations of rubbish. It is not considered that an increase of staff is required for these purposes.
5.
With regard to paragraph 6, I have already recommended, and you have sanctioned, an increase in the Sanitary Staff in order to shorten the intervals between the general cleansing of Chinese tenement houses. Fumigation of Chinese tenement houses was at one time practised extensively in this Colony. It was abandoned because it was considered that it was not possible to render an ordinary Chinese dwelling sufficiently air tight to render the fumigation effective. But if particulars are available concerning fumigation by the Clayton apparatus as applied to dwellings, and especially from plague infected countries which have had experience of its working when so applied, I should be glad to be furnished with full information on the subject.
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