Aberdeen during Chinese New Year. At the latter, Dental Officers and Dental Hygienists gave instruction in dental health and oral hygiene to some 23,307 persons, mostly fisher-folk, who visited the exhibit.
OPHTHALMOLOGY
371. This Service, under the direction of the Ophthalmic Specialist, operates two full-time centres, one on Hong Kong Island and one in Kowloon. It also holds regular sessions in a number of urban and rural clinics. In addition, the Mobile Ophthalmic Unit, maintained by the Hong Kong Branch of the British Red Cross Society for work in the New Territories, was staffed during the year by members of the Service. Operative procedures have been limited to a certain extent by a shortage of beds, but much outpatient surgery is now carried out in the operating theatres of the two main clinics, the patients being followed-up by Health Visitors. During 1961, out of 4,011 operations performed, the majority on an outpatient basis, some 1,529 can be described as sight- restoring.
TABLE 31
WORK OF THE OPHTHALMIC SERVICE 1960-61
New outpatient attendances
Total outpatient attendances
Operations performed
Home visits by Health Visitors Spectacles provided for children
Fer
1960
79,075 192,397 5,001
1967 76,214 204.811
4011
3,370
3,218
2,392
2,184
372. A survey of blind persons registered during the year was con- ducted on similar lines to those undertaken in 1953 and 1960. An analysis of the causes of blindness re-affirmed the findings of the previous year. There has been a marked decrease since 1953 in the incidence of keratomalacia; very few children were seen who had been blinded by this deficiency disease. Blindness due to trachoma has varied but little and all such patients are now over the age of 40, while no new cases are presenting in children. The trend in the incidence of blindness is a shift from the young child to the middle aged, a welcome change from the situation in 1953 when over 90% of blind adults claimed that they had been blinded when very young. Details of this survey are shown in Table 32.
$6
Cause
TABLE 32
Ophthalmic-Subnutrition (Keralomalacia)
Cataraci Trachoma Glaucoma
Injuries (all types) Syphilis
Congenital Defects
N.S. Uveitis/Optic Atrophy Degencralive Diseases
Percentage of Total Blind" PersaMS
1953
1960
M
1961
15
15
16
42
36
L1
12
B
3.5
11
10
7.5
3.5
6
6.5
4
10
2.5
3.0
1.3
100%
100% 100%
373. During the year 634 persons were certificated as blind and registered as such with the Social Welfare Department. Thereafter they were referred to the Hong Kong Society for the Blind which undertakes rehabilitation. A special survey conducted by the mobile unit in the New Territories and lasting two months delected 80 of the above total. It is of interest that at the census in March 1961 only 1,000 persons were recorded as totally blind. On the other hand, 4,000 persons have regis- tered since 1957 as being blind.
374. This is due to differing criteria of blindness, as the census data, based on the ability to distinguish between light and dark, had to be related as simply as possible to the task performed by the enumera- tors. The incidence of blindness in Hong Kong, using generally accepted standards, is 1.33 per 1,000, compared to 2 per 1,000 in the West and exceeding 10 per 1,000 in Africa and other parts of Asia.
FORENSIC PATHOLOGY
375. All medico-legal work in connexion with the investigation of crime is carried on in laboratories situated in the Police Headquarters building. The laboratories, under the direction of the Specialist Forensic Pathologist, are staffed jointly by the Medical and Health and Police Departments. Lectures are given in various aspects of medico-legal work to Police personnel and the Specialist Forensic Pathologist is lec- turer in Forensic Medicine in the University of Hong Kong. Work undertaken during 1961 is detailed in Table 33.
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