STATISTICS OF THE JAIL POPULATION OF BENGAL FROM 1859 TO 1876.
[Section III
192
was very hot and dry, emitting a most powerful and offensive odour. The whole body was
more or less coloured by jaundice, and the conjunctivæ were deeply stained. He rapidly sank.
The following morning the body was immensely swollen and discoloured, and so putrid as to
render it impossible to make a post-mortem examination."
The germ of such a fever as this, which naturally terminates in June, might survive in an
aborted form to become the origin of a great outbreak of relapsing typhus, beginning when the
season normal for the re-appearance of typhus came round. As an instance, in the end of
November 1864, true relapsing typhus burst out in the native jail at Jeypore, and 189 prisoners
died.* The medical officer says expressly, that the peculiarity of the fever of 1864-65 was, that
it assumed the recurring type: "No less than 85 patients were attacked three times, out of
which number 19 died."
This outbreak was the re-development in a milder form, of a deadly yellow continued fever
which prevailed in the year previous. Its severity may be judged of by one sentence from the
Jail Report of 1863:
—
"There were 11 deaths, which took place suddenly in the jail before they could be
admitted to hospital: these occurred at the time when the epidemic raged at its worst, when
the first and second stages appeared simultaneously, and death took place suddenly from con--
vulsions and black vomit."
In one month, in December 1863, there were 255 admissions and 66 deaths from this
yellow fever in the Jeypore Jail.
The coincidence of the occurrence of cases of yellow continued fever with the relapsing
typhus of Scotland of 1842 was well recognised. Dr. Arnot, of Dundee, says: "The similarity
of the symptoms during life, and of the morbid appearances observed after death, so nearly
agree with the description of the yellow fever of the West Indies, and with the minute account
of the Gibraltar epidemic given by Louis, as to leave little doubt in my mind that the only
difference between these diseases, if difference there be, is a difference in degree and not in kind."†
In all epidemics, the deadly form comes forward in which the typhus poison destroys
exactly in the manner of certain varieties of snake-poison. In
the last epidemic this terrible form of fever threatened to
become general over a wide area in Central India, all round
Jhansi, Morar, and Seepree. In May 1865, I brought the
fact to the notice of the Sanitary Commissioner. When the necessity for dealing immediately
with so serious and wide-spread a pestilence was urged, I suggested the probability that before
any measures could be taken the disease would have become extinct, as the season of its death
was at hand. And so it proved; for the disease totally disappeared shortly afterwards.
It is very necessary to view this variety of plague as a distinct one; and, therefore, I add a
few extracts to show how for these sixty years, and through four epidemics, it exhibited itself
a s a n a p p r e c i a b l y d i s t i n c t v a r i e t y : —
" The natives clearly distinguish this type from that which affects the glands; they call
it the expectorating disease. Both types are similarly fatal in
their effects, and may only be aggravated varieties of the same
disorder. It is described as exhibiting the under-mentioned symptoms:—high fever, attended
with burning and excruciating pains about the scrobiculus cordis, skin intensely hot, with a
feeling as if the body within was on fire; hiccough with deep and oppressive breathing ensues;
there is a pricking sensation all over the body, as if it were penetrated by pins; considerable
pains in the chest and joints, and about the navel; with great anxiety and thirst follow:
at length the patient hawks up clots of blood, the difficulty of breathing increases, and
death generally occurs on the second day of the attack. From the limited experience I possess
of its nature, I am inclined to think it an aggravated description of typhus fever rendered
more terrible in its effects from local causes: it is the type which at present most prevails."
"In many cases hæmorrhage from the lungs took place, which was almost always a
precursor of death. There was a description of cases dis
-tinguished by fever and hæmorrhage, apparently from the lungs,
without buboes; these were reported to be as surely, and were more speedily, fatal than
those with fever and buboes. This had been the most common form of the disease at first,
but lately had rarely appeared."
" I was told that some were suddenly taken ill in the midst of their usual avocations;
that, while conversing, in the middle of a sentence, they would
fall down, blood come from their mouth (not in any great
quantity), and death would immediately follow. After sufficient allowance for exaggeration,
enough still remains to show how suddenly fatal sometimes its attacks have been. The
symptoms, in general, were such as denoted nervous debility, inability to walk or stand after
the first day, delirium, or wandering in the mind, and a very weak pulse. The stomach and
bowels were not remarkably deranged, and the tongue was only coated by a white fur;
hæmorrhage was the only symptom which could be supposed to arise from a putrescent state
of the fluids. In women with child, abortion always followed attacks of this disease."
"In other cases inflammation of the lungs comes on the first or second day of the disease.
The patient complains of acute pain of one or other side, or
behind the sternum, great difficulty of breathing with short dry
cough; usually on the second or third day, a small quantity
* H o w m a n y o f t h e s e d i e d f r o m t h e f e v e r I h a v e n o t r e t u r n s t o s h o w .
† Arnot , quot ed by Graves, vol . I, p. 301.
The variety of typhus in which
the force of the poison is thrown on
the lungs: 1815, 1836, 1853, and
1865.
Mr. Gilder, Ahmedabad, 1820.
Mr. MacAdam's report, Kutch,
1815.
Whyte's report, 1817, Guzerat.
Mr. Maclean, to the Superintend
-ing Surgeon, Rajpootana. Fever of 1836.