8
REPORT ON THE
Principal diseases.
Principal causes of
mortality.
The diseases to which most of the sickness was due were, intermittent
fever, dengue, injuries, dysentery, diarrhœa, ulcer, continued fever, spleen
disease, debility, dropsy, syphilis, cholera, phthisis, remittent fever, abscess, and
bronchitis, in the order of the number of cases treated; those from which most
deaths occurred were, diarrhœa, dysentery, ulcer, cholera, dropsy, phthisis,
debility, and remittent fever; and the most fatal diseases (excluding those giving
small numbers) typhoid
fever, cholera, dropsy,
phthisis, tetanus, pneumo-
nia, opium poisoning,
d i a r r - h œ a , u l c e r s , d e b i l i t y , a s c i t e s ,
and remittent fever. Fevers
and bowel complaints are
the main causes of sickness
and mortality in the Cal-
cutta hospitals. The accom-
panying returns, copied from
the Administration Report
of the Calcutta Municipality
for 1872, shows that these
affections also account for a
very large share of the total
mortality of the city.
STATEMENT NO. VII.
YEARS.
Fever.
Dysentery.
Cholera.
Diarrhœa.
Small-pox.
1865
5,369
2,291
5,076
981
4,923
1866
5,258
2,555
6,823
1,251
83
1867
3,866
1,708
2,268
832
35
1868
3,676
1,682
4,178
730
42
1869
3,831
1,835
3,592
174
39
1870
3,596
1,038
1,563 662
151
1871
4,251
980
800
509
32
1872
5,003
1,184
1,142
625
18
small-pox.
6. Small-pox continues to cause very little sickness or death in Calcutta.
The hospitals returns only show one case, and the municipal show only 18
deaths. Statement No. 7 in last year's report exhibited the number of
deaths caused by small-pox for the last 40 years. 1872 is below any of the
series except 1836—in which only 16 deaths were registered.
Cholera.
Localities whence
cases of cholera
were brought.
7. Statement No. 5 shows that the number of cases of cholera treated
in hospitals exceed that of 1871. The municipal returns give similar evidence.
Both however show a smaller prevalence than during years preceding 1870.
The mortality of cholera in the hospitals has also been more serious than in
1871. It will appear from statement No. 10 that the increase mainly took
place during the latter months of the year. The mortality among the cases
treated in hospital was also high. Dr. Tonnerre shows in his report to the
Justices that about three-fourths of the deaths from cholera took place in the
Northern Division of the town. In a remarkable diagram prepared by him,
he shows graphically that during the last nine years, whenever the disease has
broken out in Calcutta, it has invariably prevailed to an excessive degree
in the northern part of it.
8. Officers were requested in submitting their returns for 1872, to indicate
the residence of cholera cases, or the localities from which they were brought.
These statements are appended to the several reports. I have not caused
them to be summarized or tabulated, because I am not in possession of similar
information regarding the 42 cases treated in the Native Hospital; any state-
ment which I might prepare would, therefore, be incomplete. Exact information.
regarding the residence of patients attacked with cholera, or the locality
where the disease became manifest, is, I conceive, a matter of great importance;
for though even then it is by no means certain that the patient contracted
the disease on the spot where it first became apparent, still a habitual excess
of cases occurring in any locality or area would indicate that there must be
something there to cause the disease or favor its propagation. Knowledge of
this kind guides research and tends to the investigation and discovery of the
conditions on which the manifestation of the disease depends.