STATISTICS OF THE JAIL POPULATION OF BENGAL FROM 1859 TO 1871.
[ Section III.
178
comes again into activity with the cold weather. This fever finally culminates in February
1871, and is at an end in May.
These three outbreaks I regard as hanging together, the chain of contagious diseases being
linked on over a period of two years and a half. From June 1871 to January 1873, no
contagious disease appears in the Rawalpindi Jail; in 1872, 14 prisoners in all died out of an
average of 1,025 prisoners.
In January 1873, 2 prisoners die from erysipelas. A fever described as pure typhus
succeeds, cutting off 42 prisoners, and dying as usual in June. When the typhus season comes
round, in the fourth quarter of 1873, the prisoners begin again to die from contagious fever.
But the type of fever is changed; and with it come fatal erysipelas and sore-throat. The
contagious fever, erysipelas, fatal jaundice and sore-throat continue till June 1874 ; and the
second series of outbreaks, spread over 18 months, ends. The simultaneous affection of the
Peshawar and other jails points to the probability of renewed introduction of contagious disease
from without, probably towards the end of 1872.
The lesson taught by this history is, that the dying down of an outbreak of contagious
disease in June, is not to be regarded as necessarily denoting its extinction ; and all clothing or
covering used during a spring outbreak should be destroyed, or, if returned into store, thorough
-
ly disinfected; and the former is to be recommended, as more certain to ensure immunity to
the prisoners from contagious disease in the next cold season.
I have already remarked on the coincidence of contagious fever with other low forms of
disease on the Punjab Frontier in the spring of 1855.* This
seems to have been a continued, and not a relapsing contagious
fever. Regarding this fever at Bunnoo, the Civil Surgeon
expressly remarks, that relapses were not observed. The Dera
Ismail Jail lost 24 per cent. of its strength, and the Bunnoo Jail, 30 per cent.
The Inspector of J ails says that on hi s visit to the Frontier he found scurvy very preva
-
lent in some of the towns and large villages, which the natives attributed to the want of rain.
Several medical officers have been of opinion that scurvy could be detected in all cases where
contagious fevers have broken out. But this conclusion is erroneous. Scurvy is certainly
premonitary of typhus, and no condition affords so suitable a nidus for the operation of the
typhus poison. We may go even further, and say that a scorbutic community with overcrowd
-
ing and bad ventilation, will readily develop contagious typhus.† But it is most dangerous
to overlook or put into a secondary place, the truth, that when once a typhus is developed or
the germ of typhus brought into a community, the fact that the community is a healthy one
will not save it.
The establishment of quarantine wards in all jails of Upper India has rightly been
recognised as essential ; and the interchange of prisoners is not likely in future to be carried
out as a remedy for overcrowding in a typhus-stricken jail.
*T
h e s e f e v e r s b e g a n i n A p r i l , a n d d i e d a t t h e u s u a l d a t e i n J u n e .
† Spotted typhus appeared in the Lucknow Garrison in 1857.
The typhus of Northern India is
not necessarily a relapsing fever ; nor
is scurvy among the general popula
-tion essential for its development.