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193. The average daily attendance at the Government centres in Kowloon and Wanchai was 175 and 165 respectively, the total attendances for the whole year being 63,768 at Kowloon, 60,278 at Wanchai. The total number of infants seen during the year at both centres was 124,046, and this remarkable increase, compared with the figure for 1937, is to be ascribed mainly to the refugees from South China. The average age of the infants at their first appearance at the clinics was eight months.
194. Synthetic milk, whose composition may be found in last year's Report, continued to be given daily to nursing mothers and their infants who are fed at the centres, and the Society for the Protection of Children continues to render assistance by supplying milk to those babies whose mothers cannot afford it. The Society now supplies milk direct to the centres, instead of to mothers sent from the centres, an arrangement which allows fuller records to be kept.
195. The majority of the infants brought were found to be suffering from digestive disturbances or malnutrition of some degree. No case of rickets was observed. Conjunctivitis was second in importance and was closely followed by respiratory diseases of various sorts. Thrush was very common, 594 cases being seen during the year at the two centres.
196. The soup kitchen at each centre gave over 100 meals daily. During 1938, 3,060 anti-cholera inoculations were given to mothers and older children, and 963 vaccinations were performed against smallpox. In the early part of the year 1,065 bloods were tested for the Wassermann reaction and forty-eight were found to be positive. Later, this investigation had to be discontinued owing to the pressure of work at the Bacteriological Institute.
197. Home visits were continued throughout the year and 3,078 were paid by nurses from the centres to the homes of babies attending.
198. The Eugenics League which was formed in 1936 received the official recognition of Government during 1938. The League was permitted to make known to married women who have already had children and who desire advice on the spacing and limiting of families on health grounds, where such information was obtainable. Sessions were held at the two Government Welfare Centres once weekly under the supervision of a European and two Chinese lady medical officers. The number of mothers who availed themselves of these facilities rose from 217 in 1937 to 291 in 1938. Pregnancies in this group numbered 1,529, an average of 5.7 per mother advised. The average age of the mother was thirty-one.
199. To those whose duty it is to come into close contact with the very poor living in dangerously overcrowded tenements, where more than one infant in three dies before attaining a year and where so many of the children who survive are underfed and sickly, the need for extension of the work of the League is more than apparent.
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193. The average daily attendance at the Government centres in Kowloon and Wanchai was 175 and 165 respectively, the total attendances for the whole year being 63,768 at Kowloon, 60,278 at Wanchai. The total number of infants seen during the year at both centres was 124,046, and this remarkable increase, compared with the figure for 1937, is to be ascribed mainly to the refugees from South China. The average age of the infants at their first appearance at the clinics was eight months.
194. Synthetic milk, whose composition may be found in last year's Report, continued to be given daily to nursing mothers and their infants who are fed at the centres, and the Society for the Protection of Children continues to render assistance by supplying milk to those babies whose mothers cannot afford it. The Society now supplies milk direct to the centres, instead of to mothers sent from the centres, an arrangement which allows fuller records to be kept.
195. The majority of the infants brought were found to be suffering from digestive disturbances or malnutrition of some degree. No case of rickets was observed. Conjunctivitis was second in importance and was closely followed by respiratory diseases of various sorts. Thrush was very common, 594 cases being seen during the year at the two centres.
196. The soup kitchen at each centre gave over 100 meals daily. During 1938, 3,060 anti-cholera inoculations were given to mothers and older children, and 963 vaccinations were performed against smallpox. In the early part of the year 1,065 bloods were tested for the Wassermann reaction and forty-eight were found to be positive. Later, this investigation had to be discontinued owing to the pressure of work at the Bacteriological Institute.
197. Home visits were continued throughout the year and 3,078 were paid by nurses from the centres to the homes of babies attending.
198. The Eugenics League which was formed in 1936 received the official recognition of Government during 1938. The League was permitted to make known to married women who have already had children and who desire advice on the spacing and limiting of families on health grounds, where such information was obtainable. Sessions were held at the two Government Welfare Centres once weekly under the supervision of a European and two Chinese lady medical officers. The number of mothers who availed themselves of these facilities rose from 217 in 1937 to 291 in 1938. Pregnancies in this group numbered 1,529, an average of 5.7 per mother advised. The average age of the mother was thirty-one.
199. To those whose duty it is to come into close contact with the very poor living in dangerously overcrowded tenements, where more than one infant in three dies before attaining a year and where so many of the children who survive are underfed and sickly, the need for extension of the work of the League is more than apparent.
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