CALCUTTA MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS.
7
persons dying from these conditions, as some of the bodies do not reach
the dead-house; but they are sufficient to show the magnitude of the error
which would ascribe the deaths recorded in past years to the construction
of the hospital.
14. Enteric fever in Calcutta.—For a similar reason, viz. that the subject is
now under investigation by order of the Government of India, the evidence which
the medical wards of the Calcutta hospitals afford may be usefully presented here
on the question of typhoid or enteric fever, whether its supposed prevalence in
India in later years be not really due to the similarity of the phenomena
presented by some forms of malarial fever, and not to the operation of the
specific poisons to which this particular fever is traced in Europe. The
year 1879 has not been distinguished above other years in the bearing
of its events on this question; but the enquiry is timely now by reason of
the action taken by Government. The record of events will probably be
the more acceptable, because the great antecedent probability of genuine
typhoid fever prevailing in Calcutta would tend to show that, if varied
application of the name has led to overstatement here, it has probably done
so in larger degree in places where the specific causes are less abundant.
15. The Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India, writing
of the health of European troops in 1878, notes that when enteric fever
first began to appear in the army statistics, its introduction was not attended
with any increase in the mortality from all fevers, but with decrease. The
results of 1878 were specially unfavorable to Bengal in fevers generally,
and from enteric fever the recorded loss was more than double that of any
preceding year. Bombay was similarly represented. In Madras, on the
contrary, the death-rate from enteric fever showed considerable diminution.
In Madras the Surgeon-General, British Troops, had questioned the existence
of true enteric fever as a common disease among European troops in India.
The question had been much discussed, and it seems probable that the
diminution of enteric fever in the records of 1878 is due to the adoption
of Dr. C. A. Gordon's view as to the nature of the cases; for it is remarked
that there was no general decrease of fever mortality in 1878 in Madras.
The Calcutta Hospital records furnish confirmation of Dr. Gordon's views,
and a parallel to some of the anomalies mentioned by the Sanitary Com-
missioner.
STATEMENT NO. VI.
ENTERIC FEVER.
REMITTENT FEVER.
1871. 1872. 1873. 1874. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1878. 1879. 1871. 1872. 1873.
1874.
1875.
1876.
1877.
1878.
1879.
Medical College Hospital, Treated ...
3
5 9 5 6 6 1 ...
2 42 80 86
58 125
95 124 152 164
Presidency General Hospital „
... 15 17
6 11 12 17 18 9 11 45 19 22
10
48
27
39
38
34
Howrah General Hospital
,,
... ... ... ... ... ... ... 4 2 4 16 28 88 146 172 210 359 393 228
Mayo Native Hospital
,,
... ...
6 2 1 5 6 ... ... ...
6 15 13
22 35
36 174 224 130
Campbell Hospital
„
... 94
8 6 28 2 ... ... ... ... ...
1 8 1 239 212 495 466 438 432 466 333
Municipal Police Hospital
,, . . . 4 12 8 11 ... 14 11 2 1 ... ...
...
...
1 ...
...
11
29
Total
...
1 1 6 126 53 30 23 43 35 13 18 290 381 421 731 847 806 1,128 1,284 918
16. The first conclusion suggested by these figures is that there has
been great recent reduction of typhoid fever. Such reduction might be quite
genuine as a consequence of the drainage of the town and improved conser-
vancy of its more public quarters; but the fluctuations, and more particularly
the relations between the higher figures of typhoid and those of remittent fever
in the same years, seem to show that no such conclusion can be drawn, and
that the same disease has been differently named at different times. In the
Medical College H ospital there were recorded 34 cases of typhoid fever in the six