M 18-
(iii) Other Diseases.
(a) Leprosy.
Apart from offering asylum to lepers at the Kennedy Town Settlement where the inmates come and go at will and sending a number of lepers who have come to the Colony from other parts of China to the Shek Lung Settlement in Chinese territory, no special measures were taken against the disease during the year.
The problem is bound up with the low standard of living in the poorest classes and until economic conditions, nutrition and environmental sanitation improve, it is unlikely that there will be any marked change in the incidence of the disease.
(b) Tuberculosis.
Efforts were made to provide accommodation for infectious cases of pulmonary tuberculosis in special wards at the Government and certain of the Chinese hospitals where room isolation at home was impracticable. It must be admitted, however, that the majority of "open" cases remain in close contact with the community and are only recognized at autopsy.
Provision of special institutions or of separate hospital accommodation for all persons suffering from the disease in a communicable form is an ideal to be aimed at, but one economically impossible to achieve at the present time.
In the meantime, energies are being directed on schemes for improving the housing of the poorest classes and on investigation into the causes of malnutrition which exerts such a profound influence on the incidence of cases and their severity.
Legislation was drawn up during the year with a view to bringing about the compulsory pasteurization of milk, but the opposition succeeded in postponing this for the time being.
There is every reason to believe that this opposition is disappearing concurrently with a better appreciation of the subject by the general public and that the necessary legislation will be enacted in 1938.
The possibility of legislating against spitting in public places is also under consideration, a similar law having been enacted some years ago in Malaya where there is a large proportion of Chinese in the population. A further possibility relates to the carrying out of a survey by an experienced observer lent to the Medical Department by the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis; but no definite arrangements have been made to date in this connection.
M 18-
(iii) Other Diseases.
(a) Leprosy.
Apart from offering asylum to lepers at the Kennedy Town Settlement where the inmates come and go at will and sending a number of lepers who have come to the Colony from other parts of China to the Shek Lung Settlement in Chinese territory, no special measures were taken against the disease during the
year.
The problem is bound up with the low standard of living in the poorest classes and until economic conditions, nutrition and environmental sanitation improve, it is unlikely that there will be any marked change in the incidence of the disease.
(b) Tuberculosis.
Efforts were made to provide accommodation for infectious cases of pulmonary tuberculosis in special wards at the Govern- ment and certain of the Chinese hospitals were room isolation at home was impracticable. It must be admitted, however, that the majority of "open" cases remain in close contact with the community and are only recognized at autopsy.
Provision of special institutions or of separate hospital accommodation for all persons suffering from the disease in a communicable form is an ideal to be aimed at, but one economically impossible to achieve at the present time.
In the meantime, energies are being directed on schemes for improving the housing of the poorest classes and on investi- gation into the causes of malnutrition which exerts such a pro- found influence on the incidence of cases and their severity.
Legislation was drawn up during the year with a view to bringing about the compulsory pasteurization of milk, but the opposition succeeded in postponing this for the time being.
There is every reason to believe that this opposition is disappearing concurrently with a better appreciation of the subject by the general public and that the necessary legislation will be enacted in 1938.
The possibility of legislating against spitting in public places is also under consideration, a similar law having been enacted some years ago in Malaya where there is a large proportion of Chinese in the population. A further possibility relates to the carrying out of a survey by an experienced observer lent to the Medical Department by the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis; but no definite arrangements have been made to date in this connection.
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