M 6
In order to obtain a more accurate picture of public health expenditure, it is necessary to include such items as water and drainage works, Urban Council cleansing services, etc., as shown in the following table of expenditure:
Table I.
Motor Ambulance Service $ 31,135.60 Police Department 363.50 Public Works Department 1,935,282.08 Sanitary (Urban Council) Department ... 1,009,439.35 Subsidies to Charities 204,458.09 Medical Department 2,018,137.44 Total...... $ 5,198,816.06The total revenue for the Colony from all sources in 1937 was $32,111,222.28; hence the expenditure on medical services formed 16.19 per centum of the general revenue.
II.-PUBLIC HEALTH.
(A) GENERAL REMARKS.
(I) GENERAL DISEASES.
Three factors had a profound influence on public health in the Colony during 1937.
The most important of these was the outbreak of hostilities between China and Japan. Large numbers of refugees, both white and Asiatic, fled from the war zones and sought a haven in Hong Kong.
Special measures were taken by the Government and various voluntary agencies in an endeavour to cope with the situation and to provide food and shelter to those who had, in many cases, lost their all.
But, as might have been expected, the influx of mostly destitute and unemployed persons into an already congested urban area aggravated insanitary conditions and the number of deaths leaped up from a monthly average of 2,349 for the first seven months of the year to 4,070 in September, giving an average of 3,638 for the last five months of 1937. Many of these refugees arrived from districts in China where health services had become seriously disorganised and where, as a result, epidemic disease had been added to the horrors of the situation. It was not surprising, therefore, that Hong Kong