CO129-410 - Governor Sir May - 1914 [3-5] — Page 241

دند .

I

234

Preliminary Report

on the prevalence of Bubonic Plague in Hong Kong

during 1914.

In the Annual Report on the health of the Colony for the year 1913

I stated that, during the months of July, August and September of that year, an influx of Chinese from neighbouring provinces had occurred, estimated at from 50,000 to 60,000, as a result of renewed political disturbances in China, and that in consequence the Chinese quartere generally were still in an overcrowded condition. The Report further stated that although the incidence of Plague had been light during 1913 there was reason to fear that the Colony would not be so fortunate during 1914 - there are already clear indications that this forecast will prove only too true.

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It is in accordance with past experience that epidemic years should more or less alternate with non-epidemic

years

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and the most probable explanation of this fact is that a large proportion of the rate that remain after an epidemic year are immune to Plague, and that it takes some time to build up a further rat population of susceptible rate. Sometimes one finde that a comparatively small increase in the number of Plague- infected rats in a district leads to a large increase in the

number of human cases, and I think this is more prone to occur

where overcrowding exists. Thus in the City of Victoria during

1911, 269 Plague-infected rats were found and 265 cases of

human Plague occurred; in 1913 we found 217 infected rate and

had 299 human cases; but in the epidemic year of 1912 there

were 390 Plague infected rats and 1333 human cases of Plague,

Similarly in Kowloon there were 45 infected rats in 1913 and 42

www recorded, with, human cases while in 1912,

102 infected rate used, 514

human cases.

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