149
54
55
Tetanus and Convulsions.
These diseases accounted for 129 deaths of children under five years of age.
Out of 66 deaths ascribed to Tetanus 64 were of children under one month old and one of a child over one month and under one year old.
Convulsions accounted for the deaths of 63 children under five years old. Of these none were under one month and four over a month and under one year old.
Malaria.
Malarial Fever is not a notifiable disease. The figures and tables given below therefore are compiled from the Agisters of deaths.
Deaths of Chinese are registered according to the district in which they occur. For this purpose there are five Registra- tion Districts, namely, Victoria District which includes the Peak and the Harbour, Kowloon District which includes New Kowloon, Shaukiwan, Aberdeen and Stanley Districts.
All Non-Chinese deaths are registered in Victoria.
It does not follow that, because a death from Malaria is registered in a given district, the infection was acquired in that district.
Malaria may be acute or chronic and it does not follow that, because a death from this disease happened in any one year, the infection was acquired in the same year.
The flow of the population to and from neighbouring Chinese territory, amounting in a year to more than the estimated population of the Colony, makes it impossible to say what extent the infection of Malaria causing deaths within the Colony may have occurred herein.
During 1926 the total deaths from Malaria were 587 (702) in 1925). Of these 4 were Non-Chinese (10 in 1925).
This number of deaths is a percentage of 4.69 of the total registered deaths.
The Chinese deaths from Malaria in the City of Victoria (excluding the Peak and Harbour) numbered 172 (200 in 1925) in an estimated population of 465,000 giving a death rate of 0.38 per thousand (0.43 in 1925).
The following table shows for thirteen successive years the deaths in the Colony from Malaria Fever expressed as a percentage of the total deaths registered each year and the incidence of such deaths per thousand of the population.
Total
Year
deaths from
Malaria.
Deaths from Malaria Deaths from Malaria
per cent. of total
deaths.
per 1,000 of
population.
1914
241
2.51
0.58
1915
328
4.14
0.78
*1916
337
3.19
0.78
1917
411
3.93
0.92
.918
388
2.93
0.83
1919
314
2.69
0.62
1920
332
2.67
0.59
1921
332
3.79
0.55
1922
454
3.11
0.78
1923
674
4.33
1.14
1924
707
4.54
0.98
1925
702
4.68
0.89
587
4.69
0.75
1926
This table suggests that Malaria Fever has increased its incidence during recent years.
Beri-beri.
The deaths from this disease during 1926 were 1,192 (1,744 u 1925) being a percentage of 9.5 of the total deaths registered (11.63 in 1925). This is a very considerable drop from the Ligh mortality from this disease registered in 1925.
The following table shows the numbers of deaths ascribed Beri-beri during the last eleven years and the percentage rate of these on the total deaths.
Year.
No. of deaths from
Beri-beri.
Percentage of total registered deaths.
1916
520
4.92
1917
654
6.26
1918
804
6.09
1919
555
4.76
1920
361
4.90
1921
526
4.42
1922
829
5.69
1923
1270
8.17°
1924
1502
9.65
1925
1744
11.63
1926
1192
9.5
150