Water-supply.
Plan for new
hospital.
CALCUTTA MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS.
14. The management of this large hospital has been very satisfactorily carried out
under the superintendence of the principal and the able medical and surgical staff associated
with him, and reflects the greatest credit on the untiring attention and zeal of all these
officers. Dr. S. G. Chuckerbutty died in England on the 29th September last. He was
for many years 2nd physician in the Medical College Hospital, and was well known in
Calcutta as an able and accomplished physician, and an excellent servant of Government.
His death has caused the deep regret of. all his colleagues in the hospital.
Dr. Chevers speaks in the highest terms of the services of Mrs. Bowler, the matron,
and her experienced staff of nurses, and bears testimony to the inestimable services rendered
by them to the sick in hospital. He alludes to the difficulty of obtaining suitable persons for
the responsible and difficult occupation of nurse, and deprecates the practice of using the
hospital wards as a training ground for unpromising candidates.
15. Considerable savings have been effected during the year under several heads, which
amount to Rs. 11,115-6-6 ; but under the head of contingencies money has been spent in
slight excess of the grant.
16. Water was not supplied from the municipal main, and is one of the great require-
ments of the hospital.
17. Dr. Chevers, in conjunction with an engineer officer, has planned a new surgical
hospital after the Lariboisiere Hospital in Paris, and the Herbert and St. Thomas' hospitals
in England, all of which he carefully inspected when at home on furlough.
The plan has been most carefully considered and revised in every detail by Dr. Chevers
and his colleagues in the hospital, and the new building will, when constructed, have every
sanitary improvement and every convenience of acknowledged utility possessed by the model
hospitals mentioned above. The imperative necessity of providing a new hospital for the
treatment of surgical cases has long been recognized, and it is earnestly hoped that no
unnecessary delay may occur in building it.
Management, &c.
Fiances.
PRESIDENCY GENERAL HOSPITAL.
Dr. Ewart, the Surgeon Superintendent, submits an elaborate report from which the
following information has been gleaned.
1. During 1874 there were 2,437 European patients treated, with an average daily
number of sick of 145.94, and a death-rate of 45.95 per mille. This total number of
patients treated is less than in any other year since 1867. Dr. Ewart attributes this to (1),
the shorter stay of vessels in Calcutta ; (2), the absence of any epidemic during the year, and
(3), the opening of an out-door dispensary in which many comparatively trivial cases, which
would otherwise have to be admitted, are treated. This last circumstance also tends to raise
the death-rate. The death-rate was less than the average of the preceding nine years, and
Dr. Ewart justly remarks that cholera is, and always has been, throughout the past ten years,
a most disturbing element in the mortuary returns of the hospital, and has given a considerably
larger death-rate than any other disease during the same period. The diseases which have
caused most deaths in this hospital during the last ten years have been cholera, dysentery,
phthisis, hepatitis and abscess of liver, remittent fever, typhoid fever, pneumonia, and
sunstroke, in order of severity. Typhoid fever proved very fatal in 1874. Out of 11 cases
treated there were seven deaths, or at the rate of 636.36 per mille.
2. The death-rate of cholera has fluctuated greatly—from 721.3 per mille in 1869,
to 339.6 in 1873. Dr. Ewart considers that the results of the cases are more dependent
upon the type of the pestilence and the particular state of the patient's constitution and
vital powers of resistance, than upon any form of medical management employed. At
Dr. Ewart's suggestion, Dr. Lewis gave a fair trial to Dr. Higginson's method of treating
cholera by hypodermic injections of the hydrate of chloral, but he was unable to form any
favorable opinion of this mode of treatment.
3. Out of 78 cases of cholera admitted during 1874, 72 cases were sent to hospital from
the shipping in the river. The statistics collected during the year tend to show that the
largest proportion of cholera cases is contributed by the shipping population facing those
portions of the foreshore which are unembanked, and which, as Dr. Ewart believes, are more
or less under the influence of the sewage poured into the river from the fort ; but it is possible
that the emanations from the oozy mud of the river-side exposed at the ebb tide may be,
independent of any sewage matter, a principal factor in the cause of cholera from this portion
of the shipping.
4. There were 118 cases of dysentery treated, with a mortality of 127.1 per mille—a
high rate, and higher than in any other year since 1866. Dr. Ewart attributes this high
rate of mortality as entirely due to the great number of cases of sloughing and gangrene.
Attendance.
Typhoid fever.
Choler.
Trial of hypodermic
injections of
chloral hydrate.
Cholera cases from,
the shipping.
Dysentery.