50
It will be seen that largely as it is impregnated with total solids and earthy
chlorides, yet that the well supplying the Napier Barracks yielded a not so
impure water as the Artillery well; and though at first sight one is apt to suspect
the water, yet on consideration it would appear that there must have been other
causes in operation to produce these diseases. At all events it will be most
interesting to see what effect the pure water now introduced will have on the
ratios of admissions from diarrhœal diseases.
In reading the statistics of Ghizree it must be remembered that the Sani-
tarium is in reality only a detached ward of the Station Hospital, and that as
only sick men are sent there, the admission rate is consequently high.
The present buildings at Ghizree have been condemned and a new Sani-
tarium has been sanctioned, which is to be built when money can be found.
This will be erected on the plateau, and in my opinion its site ought to be
fixed with especial reference to the probability at some future date of the
plateau being utilized for the location of troops. I think it extremely desirable
that such a possibility should not be forgotten, but that the new Sanitarium
should be placed on such a site that it could be converted into a station hospital.
If this is not done now, the greatest inconvenience will surely be hereafter felt
by its having been built so as to interfere with other buildings.
The Army Sanitary Commission recommend that the Napier Barracks
should be given up, and such doubtless would be far the best course to pursue.
Much money will have to be spent before they can be made—if ever they can be
made—healthy habitations. If military necessities ever compel new barracks to
be erected, they should certainly not be built at Karáchi but at Ghizree,
or, still better, if it were possible to recover the sites from private owners, at Old
and New Clifton.
Only 4 admissions from enteric fever, one of which proved fatal, are record-
ed in these returns to have taken place in the Artillery at Karáchi during the
6 years, 1877—82. They occurred in I/Battery 1st Brigade R. A. in 1877. I find
the following note in the Sanitary Report:—" The disease was prevalent in April
and was confined to one barrack, cause unknown"; but enteric fever was pre-
valent at the same time in the 83rd Regiment in the Napier Barracks. " Every
effort was made to discover the source of the disease, but nothing insanitary was
noticed after the most careful enquiry and, consequently, is supposed to be attri-
butable to climatic effects".
In 1878 in the 83rd Regiment there were 3 admissions and 2 deaths, and a
third death took place at Ghizree which was supposed to have been contracted in
Karáchi.
In 1880, 4 of the 9 cases occurred in the 98th Regiment in November and
December. One officer, who was suffering from enteric fever, had accompanied
the Regiment from Malta. The remainder of the cases took place among men sent
down from Regiments serving in Afghanistan. In 1881 no admissions or deaths
were attributed by the medical officers to this disease; but in 1882 the medical
officer reports thus : "A large draft of about 200 men arrived from England on
the 12th January. Cases of enteric fever began to crop up in the young men of the
draft towards the end of February till the end of March. There was now an
interval of freedom till the 27th August, when a case of enteric fever was
admitted. About the same time two or three cases of remittent fever showed a
few suspicious symptoms". In all there were 7 cases, one of which proved fatal.
I must also call to recollection the fact that the Troops at Karáchi have
suffered very greatly from scurvy; and this was not only confined to the Infantry,
but the men of the Royal Artillery were likewise, though not to the same extent,
affected.