STATEMENT No. XIV.
Years. Strength.
PER CENT. OF STRENGTH.
Deaths
per cent of
treated.
Admissions. Deaths. Daily
sick.
1867
106.06
3.7
3.3
3.5
1868
6 1 . 0 4
2.8
3.3
4.5
1869
3,183
64.4
2.07
3.5
3.05
1870
59.03
1.4
3.4
2.3
1871
64.0
1.54
3.29
2.26
Dieting.
Satisfactory
re-sults.
CALCUTTA MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS.
17
36. The cost of dieting patients is moderate, amounting to about 2 annas 3 pie per
patient per day including spirits; and, considering the class of eases treated, is greatly below
what is found necessary in the Medical College Hospital, where 4 annas a day has been
found insufficient. In the Native Hospital the rate is about 2 annas 7 pie a day. It will
be observed that the death-rate of the latter institution is considerably lower than that of
the other two. The average cost of supplying food and stimulants to the in-door sick of
all the mofussil hospitals and dispensaries was in 1870, 1 anna 9.1 pie per patient per day.
The mortality was 161.7 per 1,000. A priori the Pauper Hospital should show the highest
figure because feeble and moribund cases requiring stimulants form a larger proportion of
the sick treated there than elsewhere. The cost of dieting at the Medical College Hospital
appears, on comparison with other institutions, extravagant, and Dr. Chevers states that at
one time the daily rate of 6 annas for native patients was found insufficient!
MUNICIPAL POLICE HOSPITAL.
37. THIS hospital draws its sick from a known strength of selected adult males. These
males are moreover distributed throughout
the city, and liable to all the influences
which modify health or cause disease. The
statistics of the institution are therefore
both interesting and valuable as an index
of the health of the town. It is therefore
satisfactory to find that the figures of 1871
are generally below those of past years.
This result tallies with the statistics of
other hospitals, and the inferred remarkable
salubrity of Calcutta in 1871 stands on a basis of demonstration.
38. The hospital itself is in a most unsatisfactory state. The circumstances brought to
notice by Dr. Woodford in his report are most serious. In place of the hospital being a
place where ailments are cured, diseases seem there to assume aggravated and dangerous
forms, and new diseases of a serious nature are said to be induced by the evil influences of
the surroundings. It is most imperatively necessary that something should be done to
remedy this unfortunate state of things. If the sanitary improvement of the neighbourhood
does not cause an entire cessation of the evil effects noted by Dr. Woodford, the hospital
must unhesitatingly be abandoned. I have requested the Deputy Inspector-General of
Hospitals to submit a special report on the subject.
State of the hos
-pital.
CALCUTTA LOCK HOSPITALS.
39. IN accordance with paragraph 4 of the Government resolution dated 28th April
1871 on the reports concerning the working of Act XIV of 1868 in the town of Calcutta
for the year 1870, Dr. Payne has submitted a report on the medical transactions of the
Lock Hospitals under his superintendence, which, with remarks thereon by the Deputy
Inspector-General of Hospitals, I submit in extenso (Appendix).
1. The Superintendent shows that there has been a marked reduction in the amount of
venereal disease among registered prostitutes; of this fact there can be no doubt, and the
con-clusion that this class of diseases must also have undergone a corresponding reduction among
the Calcutta population is a priori inevitable. This conclusion is moreover supported by the
special returns which have been, at Dr. Payne's instance, submitted by the Superintendents
of hospitals and dispensaries, and of which I have given a summary in paragraph 8.
Reduction of vene-
real disease.