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tion and communicable disease as a general public health measure applied to all registered schools. It includes the dissemination of health education to school children, parents and teachers. During the year, the main effort continued to be concentrated on raising the level of immunity to diphtheria.

185. The other function is to provide personal curative services, including dental and ophthalmic facilities, to a limited number of voluntary participants in a fee-paying scheme. The entry to this scheme has had to be limited since 1955 and during 1960 the number of participants was 24,919.

186. To provide curative services for all school-children in the Colony, numbering some 600,000 is beyond the staff and other resources of the Medical and Health Department. Consequently, a scheme is being considered for the replacement of the existing limited service by a service in which private practitioners would be invited to accept respon- sibility for curative services, within defined limits, to all pupils on the basis of a per capita remuneration. It is proposed that entry to the scheme would be voluntary and would be financed partly by contribu- tions from participants and partly by a Government subsidy. Detailed proposals for the scheme have been submitted to the Hong Kong Branch of the British Medical Association and to the Chinese Medical Associa- tion and, at the end of the year, were under discussion with the Council of the two Associations.

INDUSTRIAL HEALTH

187. The health of workers in factories and in other industrial undertakings is the statutory responsibility of the Commissioner of Labour. The Industrial Health Section of the Labour Department which is staffed by personnel seconded from the Medical and Health Depart- ment, is chiefly concerned with the prevention of occupational disease and the protection of workers against health hazards arising from their working environments. To this end, an advisory service is given to industry on problems connected with the hygiene of workplaces or with the provision of clinic or first-aid facilities. Investigations are made into the working environments of trades known to be hazardous to health and medical supervision is maintained of workers in certain dangerous trades such as those in which lead or luminizing powders are handled. Health Visitors carry out individual case work on injured persons claiming compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Ordinance.

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188. With the co-operation of private practitioners and Government Medical Officers, cases of silicosis and of industrial dermatitis are notified to the Industrial Health Section. Surveys of working conditions in quarries and stone-grinding factories continue and further X-ray surveys have been carried out on quarry workers exposed to the risk of silicosis.

189. Field surveys continue into the contamination of various work- ing environments by toxic gases or fumes or by dust and temperature and ventilation studies have been made in a number of factories.

190. Lectures on Industrial Health are given to probationer Labour Inspectors, Health Inspectors, Health Visitors and medical students of the University of Hong Kong. First Aid training classes for industry are organized by the Industrial Health Section and are conducted by the St. John Ambulance Association.

HEALTH EDUCATION

191. A better appreciation by the Colony's population of the basic principles of environmental hygiene and the prevention of disease continues to be the main health objective. A very wide field is covered by many branches of the Medical and Health Department and all avail- able methods of Health Education are used in the various programme undertaken. In general, those methods designed for individual or group education bave proved the most effective, being used with success in the Maternal and Child Health Service, the Tuberculosis Service and the Social Hygiene Service. On the other hand, methods suitable for widespread dissemination of health education, as in the immunization campaigns, are accorded a somewhat apathetic reception.

192. Certain other departments are concerned with various aspects of Health Education in their respective spheres. The Inter-departmental Committee on Health Education, formed during the previous year, continued to concentrate its efforts on the furtherance of the anti- diphtheria campaign.

193. The co-operation of all voluntary bodies interested in health topics is actively sought and Kai Fong Associations and Welfare Societies are particularly active in this field. A most encouraging development during the year was the interest taken in the subject by the Women's Section of the Kai Fong movement, which organized a three-month drive throughout the Colony to promote improved standards of maternal and child health.

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