M 17
سعد
Judging from the hospital returns the important diseases in decreasing order of prevalence were:- Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Malaria, Bronchitis, Beri-beri, Diarrhoea, Nephritis, Broncho-pneumonia.
Complete and accurate figures regarding the incidence of diseases, other than those notifiable, being unavailable, recourse has to be made to death rates for information regarding variations in the state of the public health. As mentioned before, the majority of Chinese are sojourners who return to their native towns and villages when too ill to work, or when they feel the end to be approaching. Such being the case, the death records are considerably lower than they would be were all the deaths from diseases contracted or developed in the Colony recorded against them. In most instances the accuracy of diagnosis regarding cause of death is open to doubt for only a small proportion of cases were seen by qualified medical practitioners prior to decease. Bodies found 'dumped' or abandoned in the street, and they are not a few, are taken to the public mortuaries for diagnosis.
Even if the death figures were corrected, the absence of accurate figures for population would still make it difficult to obtain rates which would form useful bases for comparison.
In the New Territories there is no registration of deaths and figures for the calculation of rates do not exist.
The crude death rate of the Colony as calculated was 16.77 per mille population, an increase of 1.77 on the figures for the previous year, but less by 3 than the mean for the last 10 years. The principal diseases showing increased mortality rates were respiratory diseases and smallpox.
Of the total deaths 38 per cent were attributed to respiratory diseases, 12.3 per cent of the whole being pulmonary tuberculosis, 12.4 per cent broncho-pneumonia, 7.9 per cent bronchitis and 5.4 per cent pneumonia. The overcrowded, ill-ventilated and badly-lighted houses combined with the expectorating habits of the Chinese furnish sufficient explanation for the prevalence of respiratory troubles.
Bowel diseases accounted for 10.4 per cent of the total deaths. Of these 7.1 per cent were diagnosed as cases of infantile diarrhoea, 2.2 per cent as diarrhoea and 1 per cent as dysentery. In 1928 the percentage of bowel diseases deaths to the whole was 10.3 per cent but then infantile diarrhoea was only 2.8 per cent, diarrhoea 5.5 per cent and dysentery 2 per cent. I am unable to offer any explanation for the rise and fall in the figures for the various categories.