28
REPORT OF THE
Lowered death-
rate.
Cause of reduction
not assigned.
Question of a new
hospital.
Dieting.
Higher rates al-
lowed.
distance from the metropolis, it is certain to be attended with a modicum of success. I feel
convinced that such a move would be one in a right direction, and that much good would be
done. The expense incurred by European Governments for training midwives is very great ;
and to effect the same result in India would necessarily involve a large outlay of money.
The Native women, even when showing most aptitude to learn theoretically, have shown so
little fitness to do anything with their hands, that I question more than ever whether such a
reasonable amount of saving of life and suffering among the population would ever be attained
to, that any such appropriation of public funds would, in the present circumstances of the
country, be justifiable.
Memo. by G. SAUNDERS, ESQ., Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals,—No. 54D, dated
Calcutta, the 30th March 1872.
IN forwarding the accompanying report for 1871 of the medical transactions at
the Medical College Hospital, it gives me great satisfaction to invite the Inspector-General's
attention to the manifest improvement which is noticeable in the returns which accompany
the report as affecting the death-rate. It will be seen that (excluding the actually
moribund cases) the mortality has been under 5 per cent. in the European wards and 15 per
cent. in the Native section of the hospital, as contrasted with 9.5 and 25 per cent. in
previous years.
2. A diminution in the death-rate at this hospital was first observable in 1870, but
it has been very remarkable in 1871, and I should have been glad if, in submitting his
report, Dr. Chevers had been able to offer any satisfactory explanation of a circumstance
which must be considered as of very great importance at a time when Government has had to
take into consideration the expediency of expending very large sums of money in building an
entirely new hospital, on the ground that the present building is so faultily planned and
constructed as of itself to be the chief cause of the heavy death-rate for many years past, and
which Dr. Chevers tells us has amounted. to 9.5 per cent. for Europeans and 25.5 per cent.
for Native during the last 15 years.
3. No one who has seen the College Hospital can have failed to discover the radical
defects in its plan and construction ; but it did appear to me that the mortality was much
more likely to depend on the condition of the people treated within its walls, than either the
faults of the building or the insanitary condition of the neighbourhood in which the hospi-
tal is located.
4. Acting on my belief I brought the subject to the notice of the Inspector-General,
who moved the Government to improve the hospital diet scales, and as a result of my
appeal an increased rate was authorized for dieting the sick from the commencement of 1871.
5. If Dr. Brown will refer to what Dr. Chevers has said in his report under the
head Financial, he will see that notwithstanding what was advanced on the subject at the
time of the assembly of the Board of which I was president, there can be no doubt that a
higher class of diet for the Native sick was at that time a necessity ; and admitting to the full
the advisability of not arriving too rapidly at a conclusion on this important subject, I would
yet affirm my belief that the lowered death-rate which has been so remarkable in the Native
wards of the College Hospital in 1871 has been directly due to the beneficial effects of the
improved provisioning and supplying of the hospital, which has been practicable under the
increased Government grant, and that notwithstanding that the number of cholera cases has
been small as compared with former years.
6. It is worthy of notice that the budget estimate grant for funeral expenses for the
past year exhibits an unexpended sum of Rs. 2,249 !
Under the head also of " European Diets" there is a saving of Rs. 5,223, and this
would seem to show that in that class, the individuals of which were better nourished and in a
better hygienic condition, there was less necessity for the increased grant which I had