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SITAPUR_
Copy of docket No. 780, dated 4th April, 1878, from the Deputy Commissioner, Sitapur,
to the Commissioner, Sitapur Division.
I HAVE the honour to forward original lock-hospital report for 1877, together with
remarks on it by the General Commanding the division, dated l5th March, and remarks
by the deputy surgeon-general without date. The report reached me only on the
21st March, and a few days' further delay took place in obtaining returns of the E-5th
battery which were not included in the report.
2. The disease in the 92nd Highlanders (240.08 per 1,000) is high, but
Dr. Curran gives the ratio of disease actually contracted at Sitapur at 227.84.
I have no doubt that a great deal of the disease is contracted from unregistered.
women beyond cantonment limits.
3. Dr. Curran has not included returns of the E-5th battery in his report. Had
he done so, the ratio would have been considerably reduced. I have since received a
memo from him showing the disease in the battery as 160.85 per 1,000, which for the
whole year for the battery gives a ratio of 211.75 per 1,000.
4.
With reference to the General's remarks regarding the legality of examin-
ing unregistered women, Dr. Curran explains that his remarks referred only to exami-
ation of registered prostitutes who were accused by soldiers of having diseased them.
5. The cantonment committee propose that Government should in some way pro-
vide for incurable and imbecile prostitutes. The women in question are not fit subjects
for admission into the lunatic ayslum. We have tried to keep such women in the poor-
house, but they refuse to remain there.
6. Statement No. II. shows that a large number of the registered women were
under treatment in the lock-hospital. An examination of the statement will show that
a very large proportion of these women were not suffering from any venereal disease.
T. BEDFORD,
Supdt., Commissioner's Office.
ANNUAL REPORT ON THE LOCK-HOSPITAL AT SITAPUR FOR 1877.
Hospital accommodation, inspection, and establishment— The building used as a
lock-hospital in this station was formerly the hospital of a native infantry regiment,
which has been repaired and adapted for its present requirements at the cost of the
cantonment funds. It is conveniently situated in rear of the European barracks and
within easy reach of the sudder and regimental bazars, capable of accommodating a
much larger number of diseased women than we are likely to be burthened with,
under the restrictions that are now imposed on the diffusion of vice in this cantonment;
it is quite sufficient for our local wants, and a considerable portion of the building is
virtually unoccupied. As regards the occupied parts, which consist of two airy and.
well-ventilated wards that might receive, without any fear of overcrowding, from 16
to 20 women, these are surrounded by a clay wall some 8 or 10 feet high, which
separates them entirely from the outer world, and the enclosure in which they stand
is provided with a good pucka well and 'rear,' as well as with a cook-house and lum-
ber-room of the same construction. Owing to the fractiousness exhibited by, or to the
even suicidal threatenings with which some of these women resent their detention, a
grating has been placed, at my request, over the mouth of the former, and the dry-
earth system of conservancy is, as far as possible, enforced in the latter.
Examination room and sub-committee's office.— The examination room and hospital
office, the latter being also used as a dispensary, &c., though outside this enclosure, are
yet under the same roof, and there is a separate masonry 'rear' for the use of the