L 17
The following Table shows the nature and distribution of these
diseases :-
City of Victoria. Health Districts.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1
Peak.
Kowloon.
Harbour.
New Territories.
Villages of Hongkong.
No Address,
Imported.
Totals, 1910.
Totals, 1909.
Plague, 6 4 1 2 2 4 25 135 Typhoid Fever, .................... 3 2 4 46 32 13 13 2 17 67 76 Cholera, 9 G 2 Small-pox, .... 2 / 2 2 6 6 31 38 Diphtheria, 4 3 32 2 2 Puerperal Fever, 3 1 2 19Table II (page 25) shows the number of notifiable diseases recorded in each
month of the year.
Plague
The incidence of Plague during 1910 was very light, only 25 cases being recorded, of which 4 were imported. Eighteen of the cases were discovered in the City of Victoria, one at the Peak, two in Kowloon, two in the Harbour and two in the villages of Hongkong. The measures upon which the Colony relies for the prevention of Plague consist in (1) the exclusion of rats from all dwellings by means of concreted ground surfaces, the prohibition of ceilings in the native quarters, the prohibition of hollow walls and the protection of all drain openings and ventilating openings by iron gratings; (2) the collection and bacteriological examination of all dead rats-facilities for their collection in the native quarters are provided in the shape of small covered tins attached to lamp posts, telephone posts, electric light standards, etc. These tins contain a carbolic acid disinfectant, and the inhabitants are invited to at once put into them all rats found or killed by them. There are 650 of these tins distributed throughout the City and its suburbs, and each of them is visited twice daily by rat collectors who take all rats found in them to the Government Bacteriologist. Each rat is at once labelled with the number of the tin from which it is taken, and if subsequently found to be plague-infected, a special survey is at once made of the blocks of houses in the immediate vicinity of such tin, all rat-holes and rat-runs are filled up with broken glass and cement, defective drains and gratings dealt with, and rat poison freely distributed to the occupants, while the occurrence of several plague-infected rats in one locality is a signal for a special house to house survey and cleansing of that district. The disinfectant in the rat tins is renewed not less than once a week. (3) The destruction of rats by poison, traps and birdlime boards, special efforts in this direction being made just before the onset of the regular