Chapter III.] EPIDEMIC FEVERS OF INDIA AND THEIR RELATION TO JAIL MORTALITY.
181
The earliest visitation is traditional, for little was known of Upper India at this time. I take
this, reasoning back from modern data, to have been the mani--
festation in Upper India of the epidemic fever of Chota Nag-
pore of the end of 1807, of which I find an account in the Records
of the Medical Board in 1808. The fever commenced in August, and was at its height in
September, which fact alone shows it to have been a malarious fever, notwithstanding the
severity of the symptoms. The Board were of the same opinion. On 18th April 1808,
addressing Government, they write :—
" It does not appear to the Board that the disease in question was of a contagious nature,
or differed in any respect from the common remittent fever of the country, except in having
been rendered unusually malignant by the state of the villages where it prevailed, and the more
than ordinary want of cleanliness in the inhabitants."
The Civil Surgeon gives the following symptoms of what he calls putrid fever in its
different gradations : Rigors often very severe, heat excessive and permanent, universal lassitude,
pains in the loins and head, almost constant stupor, vomiting of black and fœtid matters, eyes
tinged yellow, tongue dry and covered with black crust, which covered also the lips and teeth.
This was in the worst cases. The same symptoms are to be met with in the course of any
severe malarious epidemic.
The fever of the second period is that described by Jameson : " The stations affected
wore a gloom hardly to be conceived at the commencement
of the cold season ; every family was suffering in some of
its members. All social intercourse was interrupted ; and the only communication be--
tween separate families consisted in visits of condolence and consolation." Saharunpore is
one of the stations specially mentioned as having had a great mortality. And again he writes,
that before the end of August, this bilious remittent, accompanied, like the yellow fever of
the West Indies, with suffusion of the skin, was rain from Patna to Saharunpore.
The fever which was epidemic in the Gangetic districts in the previous year, broke out west.
of Delhi in August 1.829. I have been able to pick out the
following relating to the epidemic fever of 1829, as far as it
affected the districts west of Delhi. It was a pure malaria of August, September and October,
as will be observed from these extracts. Again, as in the two preceding cases, the fever shows.
itself as a yellow remittent in the worst cases.
The Records of the Medical Board contain the following remarks by the Superintending
Surgeon of the Division, written in the months in which the fever was epidemic :—
September 1829.— " The returns for July exhibited signs of approaching sickness, and
towards the end of August the Civil Authorities at Delhi applied for the services of Native
doctors to send to the villages, not only on the borders of the canal, but in the remote parts
of Hurreeana, where great mortality was stated to prevail, and where, indeed, the whole popula-
-tion were said to be prostrated by fever.
" Soon followed accounts from the cantonments of Delhi, that the temporary hospitals
could not hold half of the sick, and that the hospital establishments were themselves struck
down and unequal to their duties. From 120 to 150, or more, of each corps were on the hos-
pital books, and as many more were treated in the lines. Up to date no account of any dimi-
nution of the sickness has reached me. The epidemic appears to be of the nature of an inter-
-mittent. Hopes are entertained, as the weather is improving, that the sickness will subside
without doing much mischief."
October 1829.— " The change of weather mentioned in my last report proved to be the
close of the rains. The epidemic has continued to rage in the district of Hurreeana. The fever,
although frequently assuming the intermittent form, appears essentially of a bilious remittent
kind. I should say it is allied to the worse type, called the jungle fever. A bilious tinge, often
strongly marked, is observed in the majority. A dejected look, despondency even when the
febrile symptoms have been overcome, sinking of the features, debility and emaciation are.
characteristic, and convalescence is slow.
" At Meerut, in the native corps, the epidemic has been so mild and tractable as not to
require special notice. At Delhi it has been far otherwise, with this qualification, that the
mortality has still been small, compared with the numbers that have suffered." *
Later on in the season, the results are described thus :—
" The general character of the epidemic has undergone few changes. The fever in its
severer form has assumed the remittent and, in milder cases, the intermittent type. Since
September, dysentery has frequently been associated with the fever, and most of the casualties
that have taken place within the last three months have been occasioned by diarrhœa. Since
the beginning of November, a decided change for the better has taken place in the health of the
inhabitants.
" Many, however, who have suffered, have been subject to bowel complaints and rheu-
-matism, and many also to induration and enlargement of the spleen."
The Report concludes thus :—
" The climate, hitherto remarkably healthy, is undergoing a gradual change, consequent
on irrigation and the cultivation of land up till now dry and barren. There is a tradition.
among the inhabitants that similar sickness occurred during the reign of Ferozeshah, when the
climate was exposed to like influences ; and popular opinion still attributes the sickness to
* Compare the geography of 1850 (" Cholera Report of 1868," page 75) :—" Meerut did not show much indication
of the epidemic ; yet the same atmospheric influence, in a diminished degree, was observed in the military hospitals in
the increased admissions from fevers."
The succession of epidemics of
malarious fevers. Epidemic of 1809.
Epidemic of 1816.
Epidemic of 1829.
2 X