# M-12
(xi) Leprosy.
30. It is difficult to obtain accurate information about the incidence of leprosy in Hong Kong and the New Territories. A personal visit by the writer to St. Joseph's Leper Settlement at Sheklung in Kwangtung in the early part of the year resulted in an arrangement being made with Government approval by which non-British born lepers could be transferred to Sheklung. Government undertook to give financial aid to the Mission concerned in return for which the latter agreed to build accommodation for four hundred lepers. Later in the year, Government acquired the buildings in which the lepers are now housed in Hong Kong and the plot of land on which they stand.
31. New legislation enacted at the same time gave the medical officer in charge of the lepers a greater measure of control over them, an important step, as the lepers up to that time had been an unruly and turbulent body.
32. The buildings in which they live were wire-fenced in December and a continuous police patrol of the leprosarium and its precincts was begun when the fence was finished. Government also ruled in December that convicted lepers should be confined in a special portion of the Hong Kong Prison at Stanley.
33. The daily average of lepers cared for during the year was eighty-nine. Seventy-two were sent to Sheklung in July, but since the extension of hostilities to the south of China, some of these have drifted back to Hong Kong.
34. A great increase took place in the number of lepers admitted during the last three months of 1938. This has undoubtedly been due in part to the Japanese invasion of South China. This increase is shown by the fact that, whereas the number of lepers remaining in the leprosarium at the end of 1937 was sixty-two, at the end of 1938 it was 133.
(c) Helminthic Diseases.
35. These diseases do not figure prominently in the hospital returns, and it is probable that they are much more wide-spread than these figures indicate. For example, in the out-patient returns of the University Clinic at the Queen Mary Hospital infestations are recorded as follows: ankylostomiasis thirty-five, ascariasis twenty-seven, trichuris twenty-five and oxyuris vermicularis sixteen.
36. The in-patient returns from the Chinese hospitals show clearly that ascariasis is the commonest infestation, but the figures for in-patients are negligible.
(B) Vital Statistics. (1) Population.
37. Hong Kong is still a free port, and as it is so close to the mainland no effective control of immigration or emigration exists. This being so, it is impossible to give an accurate estimate of the population of the Colony. The 1938 mid-year population estimated by extrapolation from the last two census results is 1,028,619. The excess of immigrants coming in by sea and railway over emigrants during 1938 was more than 300,000, and when it is remembered that this figure takes no account of those entering the Colony by sampan, junk or across the land frontier it is easy to realise that the normal population of Hong Kong has been increased by between 400,000 and 500,000 during the year.
38. It is necessary to add a further 100,000 in respect of the surplus immigrants over emigrants in 1937 resulting from the arrival of refugees from Shanghai and North China.
39. Most of these people have been accommodated in the urban districts of the Colony, but at the height of the invasion in November many thousands were crowded into the towns and villages of the New Territories. Though the
M-12
(xi) Leprosy.
30. It is difficult to obtain accurate information about the incidence of leprosy in Hong Kong and the New Territories. A personal visit by the writer to St. Joseph's Leper Settlement at Sheklung in Kwangtung in the early part of the year resulted in an arrangement being made with Government approval by which non-British born lepers could be transferred to Sheklung. Government undertook to give financial aid to the Mission concerned in return for which the latter agreed to build accommodation for four hundred lepers. Later in the year, Government acquired the buildings in which the lepers are now housed in Hong Kong and the plot of land on which they stand.
31. New legislation enacted at the same time gave. the medical officer in charge of the lepers a greater measure of control over them, an important step, as the lepers up to that time had been an unruly and turbulent body:
32. The buildings in which they live were wire-fenced in December and a continuous police patrol of the leprosarium and its precincts was begun when the fence was finished. Government also ruled in December that convicted lepers should be confined in a special portion of the Hong Kong Prison at Stanley.
33. The daily average of lepers cared for during the year was eighty-nine. Seventy-two were sent to Sheklung in July, but since the extension of hostilities to the south of China, some of these have drifted back to Hong Kong.
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34.
A great increase took place in the number of lepers admitted during the last three months of 1938. This has undoubtedly been due in part to the Japanese invasion of South China. This increase is shown by the fact that, whereas the number of lepers remaining in the leprosarium at the end of 1937 was sixty-two, at the end of 1938 it was 133.
(c) Helminthic Diseases.
35. These diseases do not figure prominently in the hospital returns, and it is probable that they are much more wide-spread than these figures indicate. For example, in the out-patient returns of the University Clinic at the Queen Mary Hospital infestations are recorded as follows: ankylostomiasis thirty-five, ascariasis twenty-seven, trichuris. twenty-five and oxyuris vermicularis sixteen."
36. The in-patient returns from the Chinese hospitals show clearly that ascariasis is the commonest infestation, but the figures for in-patients are negligible.
(B) Vital Statistics. (1) Population.
37. Hong Kong is still a free port, and as it is so close, to the mainland no effective control of immigration or emigration exists. This being so, it is im- possible to give an accurate estimate of the population of the Colony. The 1938 mid-year population estimated by extrapolation from the last two census results is 1,028,619. The excess of immigrants coming in by sea and railway over emigrants during 1938 was more than 300,000, and when it is remembered that this figure takes no account of those entering the Colony by sampan, junk or across the land frontier it is easy to realise that the normal population of Hong Kong has been increased by between 400,000 and 500,000 during the year.
38. It is necessary to add a further 100,000 in respect of the surplus im- migrants over emigrants in 1937 resulting from the arrival of refugees from Shanghai and North China.,
89. Most of these people have been accommodated in the urban districts of the Colony, but at the height of the invasion' in November many thousands were crowded into the towns and villages of the New Territories. Though the
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