56
REPORT OF THE
Water-supply.
Quarter-Master's Department to Matia Brooj, and there cast into the river. It is now
removed daily by the conservancy authorities of the suburban municipality from the depôt
in the hospital compound in almost hermetically sealed carts to some convenient point, and
thrown into the main sewer of the Calcutta drainage works. The plan is a good one, but it
has proved more expensive than was originally expected.
The proposal to supply the whole of the civil and military buildings of the General
Hospital with municipal water, and to connect the latrines with the main sewer underneath
the road to the north of the premises, has now advanced a step. Plans and estimates have
been submitted by the Garrison Engineer, Fort William, in communication with the Surgeon
of the civil hospital and the surgeon of the regimental hospitals. These have been
approved by me, and I understand the whole scheme has been finally transmitted in a
complete form for the consideration, decision, and orders of the Government of Bengal in the
Public Works Department.
I look forward to the introduction at an early date of the municipal water-supply
and the improved conservancy which will be a necessary complement of the project with
great interest, and I trust His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor will be in a position to
sanction the necessary outlay for these works, so that they may be completed within the
next financial year. The water-closet system is now in operation at the College Hospital,
and I believe it is working well, and is regarded by the learned Principal and his distin-
guished colleagues as a great improvement upon the old system.
State of the Pre-
sidency Jail
garden.
Out-door relief.
Subordinates' quar-
ters.
My predecessor, in his report for 1870, re-called attention to the insanitary state of the
garden of the Presidency Jail to the north of the hospital. Since the incumbency of the
present Superintendent of the Jail this evil has been considerably mitigated. I have however
on more than one occasion noted a most offensive smell proceeding from this garden, appa-
rently resulting from decaying cabbage leaves and other vegetable matter. I immediately
mentioned the subject to Dr. Mackenzie, who at once had the nuisance removed or corrected.
If the garden is well kept, and care be taken that the night-soil manure applied to it does not
exceed the requirements of ordinary horticultural operations, I do not see how it can be a
subject for serious objection. I am confident that the present Superintendent, who is also one
of my assistants at the Hospital, will, whilst making this garden a source of profit to the
jail, succeed in preventing it from becoming a cause of unhealthiness either to his own
important independent charge, or to the General Hospital in the executive duties of which he
has also an abiding professional interest.
Out-door Relief.—There is scarcely a day that passes in which applications are not made
for out-door relief. Now that the hospital is a civil one, it is desirable to institute a regularly
constituted department for out-door relief to the poorer classes of the community. It would
be superfluous to mention the reasons which can be suggested for the organization of this
necessary appendage to this hospital. It is sufficient to say that no civil hospital of corre-
sponding dimensions in Europe or India is without such a help. I propose therefore that the
Presidency General Hospital be no longer an exception to the rule in this respect. The small
increase of expense which would be involved in the creation of this department would be
more than counterbalanced by the advantages which would be conferred on the hospital
on the one hand and on the poor on the other.
Medical Subordinates' Quarters .—In 1870 it was proposed to spend a considerable sum
of money with a view to improve the inferior quarters occupied by the steward, apothecary,
assistant apothecary, and the hospital apprentices. This measure was postponed pending
the transfer of the High Court in its Appellate Jurisdiction from the building adjacent to
the hospital to the new High Court building on the Esplanade, when it was understood
that the sick of the European troops garrisoning Fort William would be accommodated in
the old Sudder Court building, which was, I believe, originally intended for a hospital, thus
making the quarters utilized by the regimental medical subordinates as well as the eastern