Chapter II. ] ASPECTS IN WHICH THE DESTRUCTIVE DISEASES OF JAILS APPEAR.
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I have selected the Benares jail for another reason. In the three months—August,
September and October 1855, 230 prisoners died in this jail
and in the jail at Azimghur. No such mortality had been
known previously, for the records of the previous 25 years
were carefully inspected with a view to ascertain if any such sickness had ever before occurred.
The rainy season of 1855 was very unhealthy in the valley of the Ganges; malarious fever
was universal, and the cholera which became the great epidemic of 1856 over all India, was in
progress from the east. The military hospitals were filled with fever patients up to the end of
the year, and many for whom there was no hospital accommodation were treated in barracks.
* Still, experience tells us that in such a season the prison population, when well cared for, suffer
less than the free community. The usual exemption did not hold good in the case of these jails ;
and hence the condition of the prisoners was looked to for an explanation of this exceptional
sickness.
Ghazeepore, the adjoining jail on the east, was associated in all its general conditions
with the Benares and Azimghur jails. This jail has been almost invariably a healthy jail (See
Table XLII) ; and in 1855 it threw off the threatened epidemic, and escaped with 20 deaths.
Dr. Lyell† early noticed that the prisoners were running down in health, and, on 13th August,
he writes to the Magistrate in these terms : " I deem it my duty to urge on you the
necessity for at once taking steps to improve the general health before it be too late. The con
-sequences may be serious. The prisoners mostly present an emaciated, debilitated appearance,
and about a fourth of them declare to me that they suffer under night blindness."
The appearance of scurvy was looked for, but it did not appear until late in November.
On 30th November, addressing the Superintending Surgeon, Dr. Lyell writes :
" The presumed existence of a scorbutic taint among the prisoners has received ample
comfirmation within the last few days. There are now 20 men labouring under one or more of
the symptoms of scurvy."
This was the shadow ; the substantial results were shown in the other two jails.
The Superintending Surgeon says, that as early as June, before the unhealthy season
set in, he was struck with the altered appearance of the prisoners ; and the outbreak he
attributed to the fact of the new dietary, established shortly before, breaking down under the
strain of this extraordinarily sickly season.
The Civil Surgeon of Benares, writing in October, says, that, from July onwards, two
or three prisoners have died daily. Diarrhœa was the most fatal form in which the epidemic
showed itself. It commenced with a scorbutic state of the gums in almost every case ; but
the remedies for scurvy were used throughout without any benefit whatever. Change of air
was also tried, but without giving any relief. The food was entirely changed. But every
endeavour to stop the epidemic signally failed, although the civil authorities were most cordial
in assisting in every way, and allowing every indulgence asked for.
He writes : "There is no doubt that the fatal diarrhœa was from the very first, an indication
of a scorbutic condition. Lime juice and native sherbets were given in large quantities ; but
they did good for a short time only, and then seemed to lose all their virtue. I gave also large
quantities of the vegetable acids, but very little good followed."
The Superintending Surgeon mentions that in many cases ulceration of the cornea and
collapse of the eyeball occurred.
The Civil Surgeon of Azimghur enters more into detail. He says :
" On taking over charge in the end of August, I found the convicts depressed and very
sickly. Rapid exhaustion was a striking feature in nearly every case. The fever cases were
long in rallying, and the dysenteric cases wore the appearance of cholera, with cold extremities
and rapid collapse.
" In September mortification of the limbs began to make its appearance. All the sores
wore a sloughing aspect, and the healthier sores were indolent and hard-edged, as if absorption
of foul deposit had quite taken the place of nutrition in the vascular tissue. Out of 26
dysenteric cases 14 died, nearly all in the chronic stage; and many after disorganisation of the
cornea, and sloughing of its contents.
" In October, the state of matters was still worse : the ulcers mortified; the rheumatic
eases were nearly all of the scorbutic type ; and 17 cases of chronic dysentery proved fatal.
There was hardly any attempt at reaction. Sores spread, the gums rotted, and medicine
appeared not to have the least effect."
He adds : " I have not found pulmonary affections in any appreciable proportion. But it
is not the variety of disease that arrests attention. Be the disease dysentery, chronic ophthal
-mia, foul ulcer, lung hepatisation or rheumatism, the jail type appears through all—a scorbutic
disintegration of the tissues, an organic blood disease of which the above may be regarded as
symptornatic."
Such statistics and statements as these impress the conviction that mere community in
he ease of an insufficient dietary, with generally prevailing causes of sickness superadded, will
not account altogether for sickness so exceptional. The aspect here exhibited teaches that
a blood disease, when it has reached this stage, multiplies in a community by contagion, and that
measures which are not directed against such an outbreak on the assumption that a contagious
disease is to be met, must fail,—as they failed in the case of these jails. In the course of these
* Twenty per cent. of daily sick is shown in our returns as maintained from September to the end of the year,
but this represents only the number treated in hospital.
†The same medical officer who wrote the account of the relapsing fever in Eusufzaie iu 1852.53.
Exceptional mortality : epidemic of
the Benares jails of 1855. Its
nature and natural alliances.
2 T