STATISTICS OF THE JAIL POPULATION OF BENGAL FROM 1859 TO 1876.
[ Section III.
206
spark thrown in from without. The tendency has been to exaggerate these in order that
the erroneous theory may be borne out. As I have already clearly shown, it is in healthy
jail communities that these fevers have been developed, and not as the rule among prisoners
suffering from want or pre-existing disease. The theory is not the less dangerous for being
based on the fact that contagious fevers may, under certain conditions, arise without the inter
-vention of the specific typhus poison. The treacherous nature of the poison, which holds
out the promise of amendment and of the disappearance of the fever, has led many
astray; the epidemic is surely on the advance, while the observer stops to speculate
as to whether the condition of his prisoners is due to scurvy and under-feeding, to
defective ventilation and overcrowding, or to the fever which he expects every autumn
to find in his jail, just as among the free population. Good dieting will not prevent
the spread of typhus, if typhus be present; robust health may delay, but will not ward
off the attack of typhus; nor will the absence of overcrowding, however it may conduce to
a comparatively favourable result, cause the outbreak to die. The nature of the zymotic
poison must be apprehended, and the measures taken must recognise the natural history of the
object whose death these measures are designed to bring about. In the jail at Umballa, in
1864, 237 men died from this fever; a partition wall cutting off the lock-up and female
prisoners from the others, prevented in a single instance the spread beyond the infected squares.
To define the stage or stages in which this fever is capable of propagation from man to man
is of supreme importance. It seems impossible to account for the wonderfully increasing ratio
of attack month by month, occurring in spite of all precautions, unless by the supposition that
there is a stage antecedent to the actual onset, in which typhus will spread among a closel
y - p a c k e d b o d y o f m e n . T h e s u s p i c i o n n a t u r a l l y o c c u r s t h a t , w h i l e t h e p o i s o n i s c i r c u l a t i n g i n
the system, and before the fever stage is reached, those already stricken are passing on the
contagion to others shut up with them, and occupying the same dormitories. The character
-istic absence of all premonitory signs before the actual attack, renders this all the more probable;
and daily weeding out from among the apparently healthy of those attacked has not availed
to bring the outbreak to a termination.
I might have impressed the facts here set forth by many further illustrations. But it has
been my wish to shorten the paper as much as possible, and, therefore, I have selected typical
examples only, which bear on the main points to be illustrated. While the medical history of
these eighteen years is in many respects a sad one, the diminution of mortality by one-half in the
last half of the period, holds out good promise for the future; and the progress made we trust
to see interrupted by few great disasters, such as those which have left their stamp on the
statistics of these years.