Report of the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services / [Ceylon].

  • Ceylon. Civil Medical Department.
Date:
[1934]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services / [Ceylon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    110/126 (page 106)
    association with this work for the past 15 years. The Ankylostomiasis Campaign, Malania Campaign, Sanitary Engineering Division, and Health Units all owe their start to the Rockefeller Foundation, and the manner in which they have developed and expanded has been very largely due to Dr. Jacocks’ guidance and help. . Li recent years much interest has been taken in scientific circles in the East in the diets and nutritional deficiencies of the local populations, and in Ceylon very extensive investigations into the subject have been made by the Director of the Bacteriological Institute (Section IX). These invest):gations are proceeding and are bringing to light fac^s of much significance. They are likely during the next few years to lead to important results. A new X’ray installation was obtained for the Anti-Tuberculosis Institute in 1934 to replace an obsolete set which for many years had been unworkable, and smaller sets were ordered for the dalle and Jaffna Hospitals. It is a little sur¬ prising that in a country of the size of Ceylon with nearly 100 Government Hospitals, and a population of five and a half million people only one hospital— the General Hospital, Colombo—should have possessed a working X’ray installa¬ tion. but a policy has now been started which it is hoped will in time lead to X’ray facilities at all the larger provincial hospitals. The number of opium consumers registered in 1910 under the Ordinance of that year was 24,205. Since then very few new registrations have been allowed and there has been a steady decrease, chiefly as the result of deaths, in the number oi registered consumers until in 1934 it was only 3,114. The amount of Government opium sold to consumers and vedaralas has decreased at an even greater rate (from 10,886 lb. in 1911 to 1,082 lb. in 1934) because an annual reduction of 5 per cent, calculated on the 1928 figure has been made in the allowance of each consumer since that year. Recently there have been numerous complaints that this annual reduction in the allowance was becoming too great and a regulation under the Ordinance was therefore made by which the 1934 allowance is taken as the basis for the 5 per cent, reduction for future years. Raw opium is also sold under permit to vedaralas for the treatment of their patients. The number of vedaralas, however, has increased from 2,673 in 1924 to 3,532 in 1934, but during the same period the amount of opium issued to them decreased from 260 lb. to 236 lb. Raw opium is imported from the Government of India who since 1927 have reduced the amount supplied by 10 per cent, or 4 chests a year. Eight chests were imported in 1934 and the importations will cease altogether in 1936. Ceylon has carried out its obligations under the Hague and Geneva Conventions rigidly as regards opium and the policy has been a drastic one. It has been suggested that the increase in the illicit traffic in opium and in the. crime associated with this traffic has been due to too drastic a reduction in the regulated supply of the drug by Government but there is no strong evidence either for or against this suggestion. During 1934 the subject of tuberculosis in Ceylon received careful consideration. The existing institutions are the Anti-Tuberculosis Institute, Colombo,—an out¬ patient clinic at which expert examination and advice are given and patients are selected for hospital or sanatorium treatment—a Tuberculosis Hospital for 349 moderately advanced cases at Ragama (12 miles from Colombo), a Sanatorium for 72 non-paying patients at Kandana (14 miles from Colombo), and a Sana¬ torium at Kankesanturai on the northern coast for 24 paying patients. It is proposed to add two new institutions. Under the will of the late Mr. J. J. Hawke, the Public Trustee, was empowered to devote Mr. Hawke’s bungalow and estate at Bandarawela to some suitable purpose “ for the relief of poverty ”. The bungalow is at an altitude of 4,000 feet and enjoys a dry climate very suitable for early cases of tuberculosis of the lungs and the Public Trustee has agreed that the estate and bungalow should be used as a sanatorium for paying patients suffering from very early pulmonary tuberculosis. The. institution at Kankesan¬ turai will then become a Tuberculosis Hospital for non-paying patients in the Northern Province. In the south of the Island, Hambantota has a climate which is very favourable for the treatment of tuberculosis, and it is intended, as a part of the new hospital building scheme there, to provide a special