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1. The need for greater knowledge of disease distribution and prevalence in the larger world populations is stressed and the various methods of studying the problem in China are discussed.2. The classical medical literature of China, though voluminous, is shown to give little clue to disease-occurrence through the centuries.3. The first important effort to study the problem was represented by the Medical Reports of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs.4. Estimations of disease prevalence by means of 4.1. (a) Surveys of individual diseases;4.2. (b) Insistence on scientific hospital reports, had been actively undertaken by the China Medical Missionary Association.5. In the absence of any general vital statistical service special significance had been lent to the Reports of the Hongkong and of the Shanghai Health Departments.6. The realisation that hospitals alone could give the required information, there being no general practitioner service outside one or two of the larger cities, had resulted recently in the initiation of a Survey of Hospital Patients undertaken by the Chinese Medical Association. This Survey had collected half a million card records, the analysis of which had provided most valuable information.7. A further development of great value in the study of medical statistical problems was the use of Experimental Health Areas, such as those of the National Health Administration, the Mass Education Movement at Ting Hsien, and the Peiping Union Medical College Special Health Area.8. Finally, in the emphasis she has given to morbidity statistics China has given a lead to those countries which still rely too much on mortality data for guidance in medical and health policies.
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