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The Victoria Hospital for Women and Children.—178 patients were admitted as compared with 195 in the previous year. Two deaths occurred, one from pernicious anaemia and one from pemphigus. Measles was comparatively more common than in the year before, eight cases being treated, whereas only one case of whooping cough was observed. Even when measles, whooping cough, &c., are prevalent, the proportion of children who suffer from them seems to be less than the proportion usually affected when epidemics of these diseases occur in temperate climates. Diphtheria also was less prevalent.
Enteric fever.—There were three cases of typhoid and three of paratyphoid fevers. This group occurs in varying numbers from year to year; in the present year, it did not occur as often as it used to do four or five years ago. Since 1919, the enteric fevers have not been as common as they were in the five or six years before this date. The proportion of paratyphoid to typhoid cases recorded in the last nine years is becoming greater each year, and paratyphoid B appears to be more common than the other variety.
Diphtheria. This has also been less prevalent since 1919 than before that year; the disease does not seem to be associated with complications as often as in Europe, neuritis, for instance, being rarely met with, in my experience.
Rickets: Scurvy.—Examples of these conditions are frequently met with, both of them being due to the use of patent foods instead of fresh milk, vegetables, etc. Often children are found to be suffering from a chronic state of ill health in which not only are the bones affected but convulsions and other complications are met with in this part of the world as elsewhere. So too, as regards scurvy, many instances of children with all of the typical manifestations of this disease have been treated at various times. One case was that of a child of four or five suffering from haematuria, for which no cause could be found until, by a process of exclusion, it was diagnosed as scurvy and treated with vegetables, chiefly the potato. Within two days, the patient was altogether relieved, in fact, convalescent. In other cases, the regions of the joints of the extremities are extremely tender to the touch, and the joints may be swollen. Purple coloured patches of extravasated blood are seen in some of the patients, but not in all. In many of the children, the temperature rises one or two degrees in the evenings, and the child appears extremely ill.
Malaria.—Of all diseases, this was the most common during the year, not only among children but among adults too. Many cases were mistaken for sunstroke. The subject is referred to in another portion of this report.
The Hospital for Infectious Diseases.—Dr. A. R. Esler replaced Dr. Valentine as medical officer in charge on March 1st. The nursing staff of the hospital is combined with that of the Civil Hospital, where it is stationed when not actually required at the Infectious Diseases Hospital. Very few cases called for treatment there this year; only seven cases of smallpox having to be isolated.