Sessional_Paper_1907 — Page 791

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Among the Chinese population the deaths of infants numbered 1,577, while only 1,028 Chinese births were registered. Taking the corrected birth figure to be 1,611 this gives an infant mortality of 979 per thousand, which proves conclusively that a large proportion of the Chinese births must escape registration. The census return for 1906 showed 1,329 Chinese infants under one year of age, and 14,980 Chinese children between the ages of one year and five years.

DISEASES.

Respiratory Diseases.

The total number of deaths from these diseases for the year was 1,632 of which 55 were among the Non-Chinese community leaving 1,577 among the Chinese population.

Phthisis alone accounts for 817 deaths of which 795 were Chinese. Pneumonia caused 469 deaths of which 442 were Chinese, and Bronchitis caused 266 deaths, 263 of which were Chinese.

The death-rate among the Chinese from Respiratory Diseases was 51 per 1,000 as compared with 44 per 1,000 in the previous year and that for Phthisis alone was 2.6 per 1,000 as compared with 19 per 1,000 in 1905. No doubt a number of these deaths were a sequel to the exposure experienced during the Typhoon as the deaths from drowning alone certainly do not represent the entire toll levied by that disaster.

The deaths from Phthisis amongst the Chinese were 9.8 per cent. of the total deaths amongst that community.

Nervous Diseases.

The number of deaths under this heading for the year 1906 is 746, of which 635 were of Chinese children under 5 years of ages 449 of these being infants of one year old or less. These deaths of Chinese infants comprise 329 deaths from Tetanus, Trismus and Convulsions and 116 deaths from Meningitis.

Malarial Fever.

The total number of deaths from Malarial Fever during the year was 448, of which 13 were Non-Chinese, 9 being from the civil population and 4 from the Troops.

In the City the districts in which there has been most Malaria are Health Districts 1, 2 and 9 with 22, 19 and 24 deaths respectively. The number for the whole City being 134.

In the whole of Kowloon there were 176 deaths.

In Shaukiwan and Aberdeen there were respectively 37 and 64 deaths from Malaria.

Since the year 1899 the attention of the Medical and Sanitary Departments has been specially directed towards the prevention of the formation of breeding pools for mosquitoes, and although the work proceeded very slowly for a year or two, yet much has been done by the fumigation of the basements of European houses (with the consent of the occupants), by the training of nullahs, by the filling in of pools, by the subsoil drainage of swampy ground, and by the resumption here and there of a padi-field which approached too closely to a Police Station or other European dwelling, to considerably lessen the facilities for the breeding of mosquitoes.

One of the results of this work will be seen in the following Table of the number of admissions for Malaria, to our two largest Hospitals, during each of the past ten years.

It will be seen that the average has fallen from 1,036 in the five years 1897 to 1901 to 531 in the quinquennium 1902-19 3. The year 1906 has been an unfavourable one in regard to Malaria, as both cases and eaths show an increase over the past few years, while the type has been unusually malignant. This increase in numbers is partly accounted for by the large number of cases occurring among the employees in the new Railway works in Kowloon.