X1000306-1971-72_Part01 — Page 17

fluoride levels for community water supplies. The cost of this operation was estimated at about 14.5 cents per person receiving fluoridated water per annum. Dental health education plays an important part in com- bating dental disease in Hong Kong, and the Dental Service continued to take advantage of major educational exhibitions to distribute in- formation and advice on the maintenance of dental health,

FORENSIC PATHOLOGY (Table 40)

75. The Forensic Pathology Service consists of a main laboratory in Police Headquarters, Hong Kong, and another laboratory in the Mong Kok Police Station, Kowloon. It deals mainly with medico-legal work in close association with the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. Although the administration of public mortuaries in Victoria and Kowloon is in the hands of the Medical and Health Department Institute of Pathology, homicidal deaths and deaths under suspicious circumstances remained in 1971 in the hands of the forensic pathologists.

GOVERNMENT LABORATORY

(Table 41)

76. The Laboratory provides chemical and related scientific services for government departments. During the year, 37.804 items were examined by the professional and technical staff, an all-time record.

77. In the forensic science division, there was an appreciable increase in the number of questioned documents examined, particularly passports and forged papers. Handwriting examinations featured prominently in the year's work. A series of bomb incidents throughout Hong Kong occupied the attention of the scientific stati of the division for several months. Numerous visits were made to scenes of crime,

78. The quantity of illicit drugs of all kinds examined by the narcotics section was again a record. Seizures recorded included 12,057.086 lbs. of raw opium.

79. Officers of the general division were active throughout the year. The new pharmaceuticals section continued to expand, recording a ten-fold increase in the volume of work donc and the output of the food control division doubled. There was also an upsurge in the specialist work carried out for the fire services division, the volume

24

of which more than doubled. The fire services section assisted in the investigations into the cause of the "Jumbo' Floating Restaurant fire. 80. Surveys were carried out on the presence of cadmium on pottery, and in the confection commonly known as 'Love-Beads'. The arsenic content of bean curd also came under examination during the year.

MEDICAL AND HEALTH DEPARTMENT, INSTITUTE OF PATHOLOGY (Tables 42-45)

81. The Medical and Health Department Institute of Pathology operates a number of clinical and public health laboratories providing laboratory investigations in both curative and preventive medicine. Il serves mainly government hospitals, clinics and various public health divisions. It also helps to conduct laboratory examinations for the Tung Wah group of hospitals. Work arising from the Queen Mary Hospital on pathology, clinical biochemistry and bacteriology is under- taken by the University of Hong Kong, Department of Pathology which receives a grant from the Government for such services. During the year, the total number of examinations undertaken by the Institute exceeded that of the previous year by 152,741, indicating an increase of about 8 per cent. This was mainly in the fields of histopathology, chemical pathology, clinical pathology, haematology, serology and virology.

Morbid Anatomy and Histopathology

22.

A total of 1,239 post-mortem examinations was carried out in 1971, of which 736 had medico-legal implications. The brains of 32 dogs were examined for the presence of Negri bodies (indicating death from rabies) but no positive findings were obtained. More than 4,200 specimens of sputum, pleural fluid, vaginal and cervical smears, and olber specimens, were received for cytological examination, of which 77 showed definite evidence of malignant disease. More than 47,000 biopsy specimens were examined in order to determine the histo- pathological diagnosis. Of these, about 4,000 were benign or malignant tumours.

Haematology and Serology and the Blood Bank

83. More than 400,000 haematology specimens were examined, the most common examinations being haemoglobin estimations, total and differential white cell counts, blood examinations and blood grouping. More than 128,000 scrology tests were performed. the most common

25