The Acting Commissioner of Public Health reports Matters concerning Public Health proved no less interesting in September than during the previous month, Although all Municipal Hospitals had been safely evacuated,. it became necessary (0 provide hospital accommodation for large numbers of cases of cholera which rapidly reached epidemic proportions. It is often dimeult during normal times to trace with accuracy the origin of resident or imported eases of cholera but, in this instance, it appears most probable that the Settlement would have escaped yet another year had there not been such a large influx of reugeos, since the disease which commenced at so late a date occurred first amongst recent arrivals of this class. The presence of so many refugees alone was a most Important problem from the point of view of preventive medicine, and there is no doubt that the medical and sanitary measures instituted on their behalf have been of inestimable value in confining communicable diseases within controllable limits, Cholera will, no doubt, subside tiaturally with' the onset of cold weather, but so long os the refugee population remains undiminished, other diseases, associated with overcrowding, and of no less severity, are likely to make their appearance during the winter months. in this group included meningitis, influenza and scarlet fever, with measles and diphtheria mainly affecting children.
The intensive vaccination _programme now In force is likely to restrict the Incidence of smallpox to the @gures usually experienced in recent years, but typhus fever, associated, since ancient times, with famine, lice and the very lowest living conditions, 1s an eventuality which cannot be overlooked... Fortunately, this disease docs not seem in the past to have found Shanghai sulted, to its biological requirements.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.