Chapter II. ]
ASPECTS IN WHICH THE DESTRUCTIVE DISEASES OF JAILS APPEAR.
173
The epidemic season of 1869, when malarious fevers were universal over Northern, Central
and Western India, ushered in the third phase; and every year since, as soon as the rains set
in, fever, with dysentery as a result, is lit up afresh, and a heavy mortality follows among the
old and debilitated prisoners (see Table XXXVIII). The general unhealthy conditions have been
common to Meerut and the adjoining districts of the North-Western Provinces in these years.
Within the jail the state of matters is thus described:
—
"The sub-soil is saturated with water; the level of the wells rises in the rains to within
a foot or two of the surface, and even in January it is standing at five feet. Everything has
been clone that can be accomplished locally to improve drainage, and the result of the efforts to
be made for the general improvement of the drainage outfalls of the whole country must be
waited for. The fevers which are now devastating the Meerut and Bulandshahr districts are
malarious, not typhoid or enteric. The description of the fever which has for years been so
fatal at the Meerut Jail is thus given by the Superintendent. It is simple ague, tertian most
commonly, and quartan during the later months of the year. The fever comes on and off, and
in eight or ten days the patient gets quite well and leaves hospital. This goes on often for
months; the patient keeps well for some days, is discharged from hospital, and seems to be get-
ting strong, when suddenly he gets a shivering fit, and returns to hospital. After several
attacks, dysentery usually supervenes, and the patient is carried off."
This was the condition of the population of the famine tract of 1861, from which much
of the prison population was drawn. Mr. Cutcliffe describes the condition of those treated in
the famine hospitals at Meerut in 1861 thus:
"The majority were skeletons from atrophy. This was not a hospital for sick only, but
for starving people attacked by disease.
"But they were not only ill-nourished and poor-blooded. They were also suffering from
great nervous depression both before and after admission into hospital. From the first to the
present time the great mental depression of the sick in hospital has been most remarkable; and
many instances have occurred of men who refused to take food, on the plea that they did not
desire to live, either because their villages had been in part deserted, and their families scat--
tered, or that they had lost their children or nearest relations, or sustained in some way or
other some severe trial, and had succumbed to despair. Many had wandered about the country
after leaving their villages, and had been exposed to the vicissitudes of the climate, fainting
under the heat of the sun by day, and shivering from the cold by night, from which indeed
they were ill protected. Many people thus found were sent into hospital by the Police, and
many in the last stages of disease arrived only to die. From the mortuary abstract of Feb--
ruary we find that out of 162 deaths in that month, 60 only survived over the fourth day from
admission. In March, 333 died within six days of admission, or about three-fourths of the
whole deaths of this month."
This was the material among which the fever and cachexy of the "Meerut Jail of 1861, was
propagated. Identically the same history of disease and death is repeated in our statistics of
1877 of the Jails of the Famine tract in Madras.
Epidemics of Malarial fevers as
affecting the health of the Jails of
a Province.
Lahore Jail in 1856.
In all cases Famine over a province tells greatly on the jail mortality. So also secondarily
does an epidemic of malaria, when the population has been gene--
rally and severely visited. But primarily the effects observed
on those already imprisoned are trifling; and the observation has
been very consistently made, that prisoners suffer less than the
free population during a season when epidemic malaria is abroad. In the bad year 1856,
when malaria and cholera were epidemic over Northern India, the Lahore Jails lost 454 prisoners
out of 2,500; 244 by cholera, the remainder chiefly by disease originated by the epidemic
malarious fever. Even in this case, the Inspector General of Jails in the Punjab remarks,
regarding the excessive mortality, "The year under review has been marked by a great
falling off as regards the health of the prisoners, not caused by any local circumstances con
-nected with their incarceration in jail, but the result of one of those lamentable epidemics
that, occurring in these provinces, claims for its victims thousands and tens of thousands. But
although this excessive sickness and mortality is to be deplored, it is satisfactory to know that
there was a much less proportion both of attacks and casualties among the prisoners than
occurred in the towns and districts among the free community."
The great immunity of prisoners in malarious epidemics has been remarked on in nearly
every epidemic year, for example, in 1850 and 1859; and yet there can be little doubt that
such epidemics initiate a mortality that affects the jail population for years afterwards.
These examples may suffice to illustrate the effects of endemic causes of disease, and of
epidemics introduced into, or developed in, the jails of Lower Bengal and of
Upper India.
Epidemics of Northern India af
-fecting the jail population, special
in their characteristics.
The jails of the north of the Punjab show characteristics
differing very materially from those of the jails of Upper India
generally.
The geographical area chiefly
affected by fevers of the typhus class.
The districts bordering on the great north-western desert are the endemic home of Indian
typhus in its various forms,—Pahlunpore and Guzerat, Pali and
Marwar, the districts lying west of Delhi, Ferozepore, Sirsa,
and the Trans-Indus tract have all been ravaged by typhus
in an epidemic form several times within the past 60 years. Going into the records from
1852 onwards, I find, from this year up to 1857, an uninterrupted history of typhus on the
frontier, among the jails, troops and general population. The three years succeeding—1858,
1859 and 1860—were extremely healthy years, and in the two last the jail mortality throughout
the Punjab fell to 23 Per 1,000. But 1861 brought the epidemics of malaria and cholera, and