STATISTICS OF THE JAIL POPULATION OF BENGAL FROM 1859 TO 1876.
[ Section III.
186
from the Surgeon in charge that typhus fever has repeatedly occurred, and that the casualties
from this disease and the endemic remittent, have been numerous in the extreme; and that he
was induced by the violence and fatality of the latter disease during last year to remove his
sick to a large house in the city."
As late as the spring of 1819, I find a record of relapsing fever in the Allahabad Jail.
Ninety-eight prisoners, out of an average of 800, died between January and June. The
disease is described as typhus mitior, a yellow fever with relapses. In the month of April,
the Civil Surgeon writes:—"Fever of a very severe continued type is epidemic in jail;
many convalescents suffer relapses." Fifty-one deaths occurred in April and May. He adds:—-
"I had reason to believe it to be contagious, from the circumstance of two Native Doctors and
several of the attendants on the sick being attacked with it. Both of the Native Doctors died
of the disease." The very characteristic sign, tenderness at the epigastrium, is particularly
noticed.
Typhus in Western India seems to have followed immediately on the malarious epidemic
of 1815. When Jameson wrote, the fever of the West had
been recognised as epidemic typhus.
In continuation of the Cawnpore narrative, he remarks:—"A similar mortality preceded
by great scarcity of grain, prevailed about the same time in Cutch, Sindh, and the other States
bordering on the western side of India. By the natives it was ascribed to the plague, and was
said so to have depopulated several cities that the living were unable to bury the dead."
Mr. Whyte's Report ascribes chiefly to famine the type which the fevers assumed. He
says:—"The severe famine which visited this province (Kattywar) gave an influence to other
causes, which, otherwise, they would never have acquired; and the one thus aiding the other, both
gained an increase of force. Indeed, pestilence and famine have so constantly gone together,
that a sentence seems incomplete, where one is pronounced without the other." He goes on to
describe the nature of the fevers, their contagious character, and their alliance to plague.
Mr. McAdam's Report relates to the prevalence of these fevers in the very towns in which
they became again epidemic in 1864. Mr. Gilder's Report is on the Ahmedabad fever of 1817,
which he says the natives connect with the dreadful famine which raged with such destructive
fury over Kutch and Kattywar three years before. An appendix to the Pali Plague Report of
1836 (No. 45) gives an account of time Bubo Plague of 1818 in the Bombay Presidency.
Before going on to trace the association of the different fevers in the next period 1833-38,
I shall note the sequence of the invasions of epidemic malaria in
Southern India. They are the same as with us in Upper India,
following in this respect the law of the invasion of cholera.
In the Madras Topography, published thirty years ago, a single sentence supplies the links
wanted to connect the history of epidemic malaria in Northern and Southern India.
The following occurs in the report for the Dindigal District :
—
A malignant epidemic fever raged in the year 1810, in the southern provinces, occasioning
great mortality; to such an extent indeed, that Dindigal was of necessity abandoned as a
military station, and not re-occupied till the latter end of 1813. To investigate the cause of
this fatal malady, a committee of medical officers was appointed in 1811, and the result of their
enquiries was submitted to Government, and afterwards published. In the districts of Madura,
Coimbatore and Tinnevelly a total of 106,789 deaths was recorded. About the
middle of 1812 the ravages of the fever abated considerably, and shortly after it disappeared
altogether.
"In the year 1816, the fever again returned, and it would appear, with greater violence
than before. Since the above scourge, it does not appear that this district has been visited by
any fever epidemic. The mortality in 1833 and 1834 was, however, great, although it fell
f a r s h o r t o f t h a t w h i c h o c c u r r e d i n o t h e r p a r t s o f t h e c o u n t r y . T h i s i s a t t r i b u t a b l e c h i e f l y
to the circumstance of the late dearth having been but comparatively little felt."
A peculiar state of the population of Western Rajpootana preceded the fever epidemic
of the rains of 1831. Scurvy was universal, and the troops
over the division became unfit for service. The reports on this
disease are dated July 1833.
The report for Beawur states, that the scurvy first appeared in March 1833, and that it still
continued to prevail among the troops, and in the town and district. There was scarcely a man
of the Battalion unaffected. The fever cases appeared to be much influenced in their symptoms
and progress by the prevalent diathesis. The writer is at a loss to assign any cause for the
scurvy. He says :—"The disease appeared long before the scarcity, and after the scarcity many
who could afford to live well became affected. I know not whether it may be attributable to
the drought continued at this place for nearly two years, and to the water, always containing
much saline matter, containing from the same cause, these matters in a more concentrated
form."
The report for Nusseerabad mentions that until September 1833 there was not a single
case of scurvy. During fourteen years of occupation, the troops had not felt the effects of any
such visitation. It is said that it is only after a succession of dry seasons, such as had been
experienced, that the disease appears. It is very curious to mark, in connection with the bubo
plague which followed, that ulcerations of the groin arc mentioned as an indication of the
diathesis.
After detailing some exceptional appearances, the report gives the following as typical:
"After admission into hospital, there was languor and perhaps a paroxysm or two of fever, with
at times regular evening accessions. Day after day the blunt projecting edges of the gums
Typhus and relapsing fever of the
period in Western India.
Allied malarious epidemics in
Southern India—1810, 1816, and
1833-34.
Epidemic malaria, typhus, and
famine of 1833-38. Scurvy preced-
- i n g t h e o u t b r e a k .