In accordance with his recommendation, the Acting Commissioner lof Police has been authorised to indent for 187 Colt Automatic Pistols and 20,000 rounds of ammunition for private purchase by members of the Foreign Branch of the Force and Special Reserves. No portion of the cost, Gold Dollars 2729.25, will be a charge on the Council. The carrying of arms by the Police when not on regular duty is considered desirable, in that they may at any time be called on to treat armed robbers and other lie Health Report for November.
The health of the community during the month was satisfactory, and the death-rates, among both Foreigners and Chinese, relatively low. The most important event the recurrence of Plague in the Settlement after being absent for eight years, except for two Plague infected rats found near the wharves in 1920. Plague is primarily a disease of rats, and is transmitted by rat-fleas to human beings. In the Bible, T Samuel vi, 5, vats (mice) fare mentioned in association with the Plague that broke out among the Philistines after stealing the Ark of the Covenant. Dr. Sambon has described a coin of Lucius Severus, Roman Emperor from 193 211 A. D. at the time of a great epidemic of Plague. Aesculapius, the god of medicine, is represented with a dead rat feet, and at his side a naked human figure in an attitude of terror or supplication, When Plague appears, or re-appears among the human population in the bubonic form, it is usually preceded by an outbreak, and heralded heavy mortality from Plague, among rats. This, however, is not always the case, for sometimes human beings are attacked before the disease has made obvious headway among rats. Apparently this is what happened in the present instance, though the facts are not sufficient for proof. The first two cases were human ones, Chinese in the Central District, They were removed to the Chinese Public Isolation Hospital in Chapei where one recovered and one died. Within three Plague-infected found; two in the Cenj istrict and one in the Eastern District, and two more human cases occurred among Chinese in the Central District. Intensive preventive measures were immediately Put into force. They consisted of (1). Destruetion of rats by trapping Found about the Plague' areas Examination in the Laboratory for Plague, of all rts trapped or found (2). Destruction of fleas rooms by spraying with a Kerosene cant disinfection "of and clothing by steam. 2 lin and of beeing hollow ceilings, no hollow partitions where rats may live. A. rat-proof building can be kept vat-free, and a rat-free building, is, for all practical purposes, Plague-proof.
Quite an epidemic of the "common cold" swept over the Settlement during the month.
Dr. Leonard Hill, F.RS. has Jwritten with authority, - knowledge and wisdom on the prevention of this! minorscourge of civilization. As he says, it is largely a matter of the individual hygiene of the adult. The great cause is not exposure to outside cold, but the artificial heat and bad ventilation of jour rooms, and the crowding together in stuffy and illvenfilated halls, The natural resist tance of our bodies is also lowered by a sedentary indoor life, with twant of exercise and sun-baths, and vitamin-poor diet, Sufferers infect. others by spraying out the offending microbes around them, in coughing, sneezing and speaking, Life in the sun and open-air and in well ventilated rooms greatly reduces the dosage of the infection, 'Warm feet' and a cool head are needed, for with cold feet and a hot hhead—states induced in many artificially heated rooms—the breathing membranes are put into an une favourable condition for resisting infection, and this is made worse by passing from the heated alr inside to the cold air out:
ight thing to aim at is to" 8 cool as possible, with the greatest amount of moving air which can be borne with comfort. Epidemic catarrh, like influenza, is probably caused by filter-[passing microbes which cause a feverish attack, not dangerous in Jitselt, but which leaves the body more' susceptible to infection by other microbes which produce, for instance, bronchitis and pneumonia, The great thing is to keep up, the resistance of the body to secondary infection by leading a healthy life, Such resistance can be increased by sun-baths, by open-air exercise, by sleeping well covered-up, but with wide-open windows, by avoidance of over-heated rooms and ill-ventilated, jerowded halls,...by a diet rich in vitamins, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and by temperance in appetite. Immunity can also undoubtedly be kept up by a suit-fable vnecine, a dose of which may injected several 8 during the winter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.