STATISTICS OF THE JAIL POPULATION OF BENGAL FROM 1859 TO 1876. [Section III.
162
July, and 59 between August and January. This disparity is related to the special climatic
conditions in regard to which Lower Bengal differs from the provinces of Upper India.
It is not necessary that the results of the general climatic influences which prevail during
the rains and cold season should be manifested at Meerut as
dysentery and at Lahore as pneumonia. Taking the Punjab
as a province and the entire of the deaths of the ten years,
the parallel rise and fall of all diseases of debility is typically
shown. Some would call this general influence malaria and
speak of these diseases as malarious. I note them now simply as following on the agencies
normal to these months in Northern India:
Died in the Jails of the Punjab, 1867—76.
July. Aug. Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan. Feb.
Dysentery
24
53
121
147
200
190
108
43
Fever
28
47
84
126
142
76
50
47
Respiratory Diseases
28
17
46
69
116
186
184 117
Anæmia, Spleen Disease and Phthisis 9
21
29
34
42
32
35
19
Taking these deaths in the aggregate, for the six months from July to December the rise
to the maximum of November is shown thus in the distribution of 100 deaths:
July.
August.
September.
October.
November.
December.
4.8
7.4
15.0
20.2
26.7
25.9
=100
I have said that these diseases of debility cause in the present time 75 per cent. of deaths
from all diseases, leaving out epidemics which introduce ratios which are altogether uncertain.
It is worth while to note that in Bengal Proper in particular, and generally under every Adminis
- t r a t i o n , t h e d e a t h s f r o m s c u r v y a n d g e n e r a l d r o p s y a r e v e r y m u c h f e w e r i n r e c e n t y e a r s . I n
the latter of the two 9-year periods, the ratio for scurvy is one-fourth, as compared with the
death-rate from scurvy in 1859—67. The ratio is .08, against .31; representing 48 deaths in
the one case, and 143 in the other. In the same periods, general dropsy gave 620 deaths
against 447; 1.33 per 1,000 for 1859—67, and .72 for 1868—76.
While in these 18 years, 22,781 deaths of prisoners were attributed to dysentery or diarrhœa,
it is a remarkable contrast to find only 222 deaths, out of a total
of 56,616, attributed to hepatitis. Assuming that all of these
cases were correctly diagnosed and represented hepatitis as we
meet with it in the European Army, an assumption entirely
erroneous, the fact would still be sufficiently remarkable, that
the prison community should furnish an annual ratio of
. 1 5 ; c o n t r a s t i n g w i t h 3 . 3 1 , t h e r a t i o f o r t h e B r i t i s h s o l d i e r , a n d c l o s e l y a p p r o x i m a t i n g t o
that of the native soldier, which is .17.
As far as I know, the enteric fever of the British soldier has no counterpart in the prison
population. In the past six years, I have recorded 28 deaths under this head, as furnished to
me. That these were typical examples of enteric fever I do not assert; nor am I prepared to affirm
that the prevalence of enteric fever may not have been understated in the returns as published.
The attention of medical officers has throughout these years been directed specially to this
subject; and we know that generally under such circumstances, the tendency is to exaggerate and
not to understate the prevalence of a special disease. In two cases in which the patient's age
is given as 55 to 60 we need not hesitate to reject the diagnosis; and in others where the age is
noted as between 30 and 40 we may regard the diagnosis as doubtful. In the last five years,
26 cases appear in our tables; and these were spread over the whole 12 months, giving an
average little over 2 for each month of the year. And when I add, that these 26 deaths were
returned from 14 different jails and from all provinces of the Presidency, it is obvious that
nothing approximating to a severe outbreak of enteric fever is recorded in these tables. But
I have to make this exception, that the Lahore female jail is said to have suffered from enteric
fever towards the end of 1875, when three fatal cases were recorded.
Heat apoplexy is a disease from which, under exceptional conditions, the prisoner in Bengal
suffers. His ratio is .56, which contrasts with .22, the ratio for the Native soldier. The rise
of mortality with the hot weather is shown thus, in the leading table:—
Deaths of Prisoners from Heat Apoplexy, 1867—76.
April.
May.
June.
July.
August.
September.
11
47
133
33
18
15
In a few days, before and after 20th June 1869, 200 prisoners were seized with heat
apoplexy in the jails of Upper India, from Benares northwards, of whom 80 died. To avoid
suffocation, under such circumstances, it is essential that the prisoners should sleep in the open
air; for it is poisoning by stagnant and polluted air which determines the attack in the
prisoner, just as the poison of alcohol or smallpox predisposes to it in the case of the European
soldier.
Of the place which contagious fevers occupy in the mortality of the prison population,
I need not speak here. In our ten-year tables, the results of a
few outbreaks which brought to a close the epidemic which
originated in November 1859, are incorporated; and the history
The parallel manifestation by
months of dysentery and respiratory
diseases and fevers, illustrated from
the deaths of the jails of the Pun
- j a b .
Contrasts in the composition of
the death-rates of the European
soldier and the native prisoner in
B e n g a l .
Hepatitis, enteric fever, heat
apoplexy.
The contagious fevers of jails
treated of in the third chapter of
this section.