Annual medical and sanitary report / Trengganu.

  • Terengganu. Medical Department.
Date:
[1934]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual medical and sanitary report / Trengganu. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/30 (page 8)
    (5) FOOD DEFICIENCY DISEASES. Beri-beri.—Most of these cases occur towards the end of the north-east monsoon. The incidence is perhaps greater among the Chinese than the Malays and is often noted in women after confinement. It is difficult to persuade these patients to vary their diet of polished rice and dried fish with vegetables which is not a popular article of diet in Trengganu. This disease is common on the coast where the population depends on fishing for a livelihood and buys the polished rice which it eats: but it is rare in the interior where the home grown, unpolished rice is the staple diet. 968 (782) cases were treated while 68 (64) deaths were reported. Scurvy.—Two cases occurred and one died. Goitre.—A number of cases occur in a localized area in the upper reaches of the Trengganu river which was visited by the Medical Officer last year. About 5% of the population have marked enlargements while minor degrees of enlargement are common. The disease is commoner in women and seems to appear about the age of puberty. (6) TUBERCULOSIS. 101 (92) cases of pulmonary and laryngeal tuberculosis were treated. 48 (46) were treated in the hospital with 15 (8) deaths. 132 people were reported to have died of respiratory diseases and of these 45 were due to tuberculosis. (7) YAWS. This disease is extremely prevalent and every manifestation can be seen. Signs of yaws were noted in nearly 40% of the pupils at Kuala Trengganu (as against 56% in 1933) but in the majority of these cases the disease was inactive. The disease is commonest on the coast. Owing to the campaigns against this disease, the early, active stages of the disease are not common in the larger towns. 4,400 (4,789) cases were treated and of these, 405 (498) were in-patients. The routine treatment is injection of bismuth-sodium-tartrate which is effective and has the merit of cheapness but a number of Malays fear these injections as they are almost invariably followed by a general reaction which is in many cases severe. This drug is gradually being replaced by metallic bismuth, stovarsol, neoarsphenamine and sulpharsphenamine and it is not now given to cases in the hospital. If the State can afford the expense, the use of these expensive drugs will be extended. (8) LEPROSY. Every effort is made to encourage these patients to come for treatment. Three deaths from this cause were reported during the year. (9) EXANTHEMATA AND OTHER FEBRILE DISEASES. There were 30 (38) cases of chicken-pox reported while there were 8 (5) cases of mumps and 6 (4) cases of whooping-cough. The number of cases of measles increased from 18 to 93 and there were 4 deaths from this cause. There was no case of diphtheria. No case of tropical typhus, tsutsugamushi fever or leptospirosis has yet been diagnosed in Trengganu. (10) SKIN DISEASES. Tinea and scabies are the principal skin diseases. 6,883 (6,803) cases of tinea and 8,064 (6,534) cases of scabies were treated. (11) CHRONIC ULCER. 9,880 cases of ulcer were treated as against 12,290 in 1933.