CO129-299 - Administrator Major Gen Gascoigne - 1900 [5-6] — Page 333

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Officer of Health is urgently required.

The duties of the Medical Officer of

Health have increased enormously with the large amount of recent legislation. on Sanitary Matters, and with the extra work thrown upon him in connection with visitations of Plague which appear now to be likely to be annually recurrent as they have been for the last 3 years.

Moreover it is proposed to extend the

Public Health and other Ordinances on Sanitary matters to the extensive strip of country comprised in that portion of the Kowloon Peninsula which was formerly Chinese territory, and

to the the littoral between the first range of hills North of the Peninsula,and, the sea.

This area contains some 16 square miles

and includes Kowloon City, which is probably the filthiest village in the newly acquired. Territory.

4. I attach for your information copies of

statements of the duties of the Medical Officer of Health and

: of those that would be specially assigned to an Assistant

Medical Officer, who would also be required to assist the Medical

Officer of Health in the discharge of his duties.

As to salary of the nor appointment I

concur in the recommendatiors made last year by the Select

: Committee of the Board on. that subject,Viz: that the emoluments should be $2,400 rising to $3,000 per annum,with $720 per annum house allowance and $288 per annum for conveyance, and I would strongly urge the desirability of providing in the Estimates for 1901 for. the new appointment.

Tot May. 19001

I enclose for your perusal an article

which appeared in the local morning paper on the subject of the

report