11
MILITARY LOCK HOSPITALS, MADRAS PRESIDENCY.
No registration fees were levied. The attendance of the registered prostitutes for the weekly
examination has, during the year, been very satisfactory.
There has been an increase in the number of women admitted into hospital during this year,
compared with that of the previous years. Admissions under the head of primary syphilis and
gonorrhœa are much less than last year.
The most prevalent disease amongst the prostitutes was leucorrhœa brought on by the
constant excitement of the generative organs and by their intemperate habits. The disease, in
most cases, was of a mild type and readily yielded to appropriate treatment, but liable to recur
owing to their imprudence as stated above.
Extracts from the Annual Medical Report of the Lock Hospital at Kamptee, by
Surgeon-Major J. M. DONNELLY.
The hospital is a well-constructed masonry building and affords ample and very complete
accommodation for its inmates. There is wanting in it very little necessary for the due
fulfilment of the object for which the establishment is maintained.
The Cantonment Sub-Committee, composed of the following officers, met regularly once
every month to exercise special supervision over the rules and their working :
—
1. Deputy Surgeon-General, Nagpore Force and Central India Regiments.
2. Medical Officer in charge of Lock Hospital.
3. Cantonment Magistrate.
No women were employed for any purpose in the neighbourhood of the single men's
barracks, and the regimental were prepared to apprehend and hand over to the Cantonment
Police any female found entering or loitering near these buildings. Periodical health inspections
of the men were also made with a view to the early detection of disorders that prove serious
mainly from neglect or indifference on the part of the subject of them, and are not difficult of
treatment when seen in time.
As heretofore the control of prostitution was vested in the police generally, no special
detective agency being employed for the supervision of clandestine pursuit of the calling.
There is no ground for believing that open immorality is confined solely to the few women
whose names are placed on the register ; but the prevention of it is a matter beset with
difficulty, and with no better instruments than the ordinary Police Constable to apply it, a
remedy does not readily suggest itself.
I fear registration cannot be described as having been efficiently maintained, for the total
number of women on the list was only on an average 49 . 09—a small number, it cannot be
denied, of chartered libertines for so large a community.
The attendance at inspection was, on the whole, regular ; 39 reported as absent were duly
punished by the Magistrate.
No change in the procedure of inspections was introduced. One morning in the week was
devoted to each class, and the necessary examination conducted by the Medical Officer assisted
by the Hospital Assistant and the Chowdran. One day per week was also set apart for the
consideration of the cases in hospital and of those whose absence from the other day was due
to recognised reasons for such absence.
With but few exceptions the cases treated in hospital were purely local maladies, capable of
propagating themselves it is true, but incapable of inflicting any serious or lasting injury upon
the subject of them and without any power of hereditary transmission. This most important
fact is only explicable on the grounds that the observance of careful ablution which females
attending the hospital learn to practise is not neglected in their private homes. In this
indirect manner the benefits of the institution are widely extended. No relation whatever
could be traced between the disease in the European Hospital and that in the Lock Hospital.
The hospital is far from perfect, but yet no feasible measures for its improvement suggest
themselves. As an institution for the relief of suffering and the diminution of the spread of a
great evil it possesses a strong claim to consideration. But attempts to extend its benefits
to any larger class than that for whom it has hitherto been maintained must involve the
employment of some detective agency or an activity on the part of the police that is not without
some serious faults in itself—throwing into the hands of ignorant, and possibly corrupt, men a
power of interfering with the rights of individuals that cannot be lightly thought of.
Extracts from the Annual Medical Report of the Lock Hospital at St. Thomas'
Mount, by Surgeon A. J. O'HARA.
The hospital is a tiled building divided into a ward, examination room and store room, with
a verandah in front and rear. The ward is calculated to contain 12 patients.
I am of opinion that the Police have not been properly on the alert ; as, during the past
eight months, no fresh registrations have taken place at St. Thomas' Mount. Both first and