Cases.
120
100
80
60
40
20
M 9
CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS
1938.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug | Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
(vi) Pulmonary tuberculosis.
24. Approximately one out of eight of all deaths occurring in Hong Kong in 1938 was due to pulmonary tuberculosis, which killed 4,920 people in the year. It is probable that at least five people suffer from the disease for everyone who dies of it, and the opportunities afforded for its spread by overcrowding are legion. The average poorer class Chinese tenement to-day houses from thirty to as many as sixty human beings per floor as compared with between fifteen and seventeen before the "Incident". Many of these people are out of work, most of those who have work are underpaid and all live on an inadequate and ill-balanced diet. They are exposed daily to mass infection with tuberculosis because of the universal and disagreeable habit of spitting; they are ignorant of the ways in which the disease is spread; their hygienic standards are of the lowest, and it is, therefore, not to be wondered at that tuberculosis heads the list of killing diseases in Hong Kong.
25. Tuberculosis was not notifiable in 1938 and it was quite impossible to send into hospital any but a small proportion of infective cases.
Cases.
120
100
80
60
40
20
M 9
CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS
1938.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug | Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. (vi) Pulmonary tuberculosis.
24. Approximately one out of eight of all deaths occurring in Hong Kong in 1938 was due to pulmonary tuberculosis, which killed 4,920 people in the year. It is probable that at least five people suffer from the disease for everyone who dies of it, and the opportunities afforded for its spread by overcrowding are legion. The average poorer class Chinese tenement to-day houses from thirty to as many as sixty human-beings per floor as compared with between fifteen and seventeen before the "Incident". Many of these people are out of work, most of those who have work are underpaid and all live on an inadequate and ill-balanced diet. They are exposed daily to mass infection with tuberculosis because of the universal and disagreeable habit of spitting; they are ignorant of the ways in which the disease is spread; their hygienic standards are of the lowest, and it is, therefore, not to be wondered at that tuberculosis heads the list of killing diseases in Hong Kong.
25. Tuberculosis was not notifiable in 1938 and it was quite impossible to send into hospital any but a small proportion of infective cases.
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