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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
"The importance of adequate training in hygiene and preventive medicine can hardly be overstated. Every practi- tioner in a tropical climate should be a sanitarian. The value of measures for the protection of the health of the individual and the community is well-recognised in Malaya, where so many successful pioneer workers in the field of sanitation and anti- malaria measures have set an example throughout the East. It is remarkable, therefore, that a Chair of Public Health has not so far been regarded as essential in the College of Medicine. A strong and vigorous department organised for research and experiment, for post-graduate studies and refresher courses in conjunction with the departments of bacteriology, pathology and tropical medicine, for additional trainings of the assistant surgeons, and for instruction to Sanitary Inspectors in close association with the Singapore Municipal Health Department is urgently required."
In Hong Kong there is at present no Board of Health what- ever, but the question seems well worth consideration whether it would not be advisable for the Government to establish such a Board, under the presidency of the Honourable Dr. Wellington, for preventive and research work, seeing that the present powers of the Sanitary Board in regard to Public Health are very ill-defined.
The question also arises whether this Colony ought not to contribute more than it does now to schools for research into tropical diseases.
Education, Agriculture and Otherwise.
Instruction in agriculture ought to form one branch of the Government's education curriculum and to be taught in the Govern- ment and Vernacular Schools.
In Ceylon, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies much has been accomplished, the rice-crops having been very largely increased per acre by scientific means alone, and many new cereals and plants have been introduced.
The Right Honourable Mr. Ormsby Gore in his above mentioned Report, when dealing with Ceylon, at page 74, points out the proved utility in Canada and other parts of the Empire of cinema films as a means of disseminating instruction regarding the best agricultural practices, the result of experimental work and research, and the prevention of insect-pests and plant diseases, and he also points out that the Films Committee of the Empire Marketing Board is now engaged in formulating plans for an interchange of instructional films between different parts of the Empire.
Mr. Ormsby Gore also points out (on page 123), when dealing with Java that, in that Island, the best method of reaching the agricultural peasant has been found to be by means of a staff of trained native lecturers.
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