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Section 2 of Public Health Act CAP 242: Interpretation

    

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires— “adult” means a person of eighteen years of age or over;
“approved” and “prescribed” means respectively approved or prescribed by the Minister or the board or by the appointed officers or by the regulations framed under this Act as the case may be;
“basement” means any cellar, vault or underground room;
“board” means the Central Board of Health constituted under section 3;
“building” includes any structure whatsoever for whatever purpose used;
“burial” means burial in earth, interment or any other form of sepulture, or the cremation or any other mode of disposal of a dead body, and “buried” has a corresponding meaning;
“child” means a person under eighteen years of age;
“commercial area” means any area in any municipality, township or district which the Minister may, by order, define;
“dairy” means any farmhouse, cow-shed, milk-shop, milk-store or other place from which milk is supplied on, or for, sale, or in which milk is kept or used for purposes of sale or in which only surplus milk is manufactured into butter or cheese, or in which vessels used for the sale of milk are kept, but does not include premises from which milk is not supplied otherwise than in receptacles which are properly closed and sealed on delivery to the premises and which remain properly closed and sealed during the whole time from their delivery to the premises until their removal by the purchaser;
“dairyman” includes any cow-keeper, purveyor of milk or occupier of a dairy, and, in cases where a dairy is owned by a corporation or company, the secretary or other person actually managing the dairy;
“drain” means any drain used for the drainage of one building only, or of premises within the same curtilage and made merely for the purpose of communicating therefrom with a cesspool or other like receptacle for drainage, or with a sewer into which the drainage of two or more buildings or premises occupied by different persons is conveyed;
“drainage authority” means the Ministry of Works or any other authority that the Minister may appoint for any particular area;
“dwelling” means any house, room, shed, hut, cave, tent, vehicle, vessel or boat or any other structure or place whatsoever, any portion whereof is used by any human being for sleeping or in which any human being dwells;
“factory” means any building or part of a building in which machinery is worked by steam, water, electricity or other mechanical power, for the purposes of trade;
“food” means any article used for food or drink other than drugs or water, and any article intended to enter into or be used in the preparation of such food, and flavouring matters and condiments;
“guardian” means any person having by reason of the death, illness, absence or inability of the parent or any other cause the custody of a child;
“health authority”, in relation to the area of a municipality, means the municipal council of the municipality concerned, and, in relation to any other area, means the Minister;
“infected” means suffering from, or in the incubation stage of, or contaminated with the infection of, any infectious or communicable disease;
“infectious disease” means any disease (not including any venereal disease except gonorrhoeal ophthalmia) which can be communicated directly or indirectly by any person suffering therefrom to any other person;
“isolation” means the segregation and the separation from and interdiction of communication with others, of persons who are or are suspected of being infected; “isolated” has a corresponding meaning;
“keeper of a lodging-house” means any person licensed to keep a lodging-house;
“land” includes any right over or in respect of immovable property;
“latrine” includes privy, urinal, earth-closet and water-closet;
“lodging-house” means a building or part of a house including the veranda thereof, if any, which is let or sublet in lodgings or otherwise, either by storeys, by flats, by rooms or by portions of rooms;
“magistrate” means any magistrate empowered to hold a subordinate court of the first, second or third class;
“meat inspector” means any person employed by a health authority to inspect any meat;
“medical officer of health” means— (a) the Director of Medical Services; and
(b) in relation to the area of any municipality, the duly appointed
medical officer of health of the municipality including a public officer seconded by the Government to hold such office; and
(c) in relation to any other area a medical officer of health appointed by the Minister for that area;
“medical observation” means the segregation and detention of persons under medical supervision;
“medical surveillance” means the keeping of a person under medical supervision; persons under such surveillance may be required by the medical officer of health or any duly authorized officer to remain within a specified area or to attend for medical examination at specified places and times;
“the Minister” means the Minister for the time being responsible for matters relating to Health;
“occupier” includes any person in actual occupation of land or premises without regard to the title under which he occupies and in case of premises subdivided and let to lodgers or various tenants the person receiving the rent payable by the lodgers or tenants whether on his own account or as an agent for any person entitled thereto or interested therein;
“offensive trade” includes the trades of blood-boiler, bone-boiler, fellmonger, soap-boiler, tallow-melter and tripe-boiler, and any other noxious or offensive trade, business or manufacture whatsoever;
“this Act” includes any rules or order made thereunder;
“owner”, as regards immovable property, includes any person, other than the Government, receiving the rent or profits of any lands or premises from any tenant or occupier thereof or who would receive such rent or profits if such land or premises were let whether on his own account or as agent for any person, other than the Government, entitled thereto or interested therein; the term includes any lessee or licensee from the Government and any superintendent, overseer or manager of such lessee or licensee residing on the holding;
“parent” means the father and the mother of a child, whether legitimate or not;
“premises” includes any building or tent together with the land on which the same is situated and the adjoining land used in connexion therewith, and includes any vehicle, conveyance or vessel;
“public building” means a building used or constructed or adapted to be used either ordinarily or occasionally as a place of public worship or as a hospital, college, school, theatre, public hall or as a public place of assembly for persons admitted by ticket or otherwise, or used or adapted to be used for any other public purpose;
“public latrine” means any latrine to which the public are admitted on payment or otherwise;
“rules” includes regulations and by-laws made or deemed to be made under this Act;
“slaughterhouse” means any premises set aside for the purpose of the slaughter of animals for human consumption;
“stock” means all domesticated animals of which the flesh or milk is used for human consumption;
“street” means any highway, road or sanitary lane, or strip of land reserved for a highway, road or sanitary lane, and includes any bridge, footway, square, court, alley or passage whether a thoroughfare or not, or a part of one;
“trade premises” means any premises (other than a factory) used or intended to be used for carrying on any trade or business;
“veranda” includes any stage, platform or portico projecting from the main wall of any building;
“veterinary officer” means a veterinary surgeon in the employment of the Government;
“workshop” means any building or part of a building in which manual labour is exercised for purposes of trade.

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