101
The ratio of admissions and deaths per 1,000 of aggregate stength during
the five years was as follows :—
Period—Five years 1877—81.
Ghorpuri
Wanown
Cholera.
A.
10
18
D
1 0
12
Enteric Fever.
A
2 3
i 08
D.
14
04
Other Fevers.
A.
750 2
352 7
D.
12
06
Dysentery.
A.
18 2
82
D.
02
02
Diarrhoea.
A.
56 3
31 4
D.
1 0
00
All Causes.
A.
1,334 2
879 8
D.
7
0
3 8
so that it is evident that there must be some cause which affects the men
living at Ghorpuri which does not affect the men occupying the Wanowri Bar-
racks.
In 1877 cholera caused four admissions and three deaths and in the following
year five admissions and three deaths in the Wanowri Barracks, whilst among
the troops at Grhorpuri in 1877 two men and in 1'878 three men died from this
disease.
Since 1878 there has been no cholera among the European troops in Poona.
In considering the admissions and deaths from enteric fever I must point out
that there is a discrepancy in the figures given in the above tables arid in
those supplied in Table VI. by the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government
of India, thus :—
Years,
Above Tables ... ...
Table
VI.
...
...
1880.
A.
2
6
D.
2
6
1881.
A.
10
16
D.
6
10
This arises from the fact before noticed that in all fatal cases where enteric lesions
are found the deaths are ascribed by the Statistical Officer to the Sanitary Com-
missioner with the Government of India to enteric fever although the Medical
Officer in charge has entered them under different headings,
Regarding the outbreak at the Ghorpuri Barracks in the 1st Battalion Rifle
Brigade in 1880, Dr. Broke Smith, then in charge of the regiment, reports :—
"The outbreak of enteric fever (so called) amongst the men of the 1st Battalion Rifle
Brigade took place during the period between the middle of July and the middle of
August. In my opinion the disease was merely a variety of malarial affection occurring in
men living in all respects under the same circumstances as regards locality, duties, habits
and exposure as their comrades, and exhibiting at the commencement of their sickness
precisely similar symptoms to those observed in other men suffering the more usual form of
malarial poisoning, the peculiar enteric symptoms only developing themselves after prolonged
illness. Nothing specific except the general malarious influence prevalent throughout the
lines could be discovered to account for this peculiar form of attack.
" Bach company of the Battalion, with the exception of 'I,' quartered in the centre of the
lines, furnished a case ', 'F' Company, quartered in the extreme blocks of the new barracks,
furnished two from bungalows Nos. 4 and 5. The other cases came from Nos. 1, 3, 6, 7, 15,
respectively, and the Sergeant Instructor of Musketry from one of the Staff Sergeants'
bungalows."
The 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade was removed from these barracks on the
22nd August 1881 on account of the great prevalence of sickness among them
and was sent to Ahmednagar for a change. It was then ordered that the
barracks should remain vacant for two years, but military exigencies compelled
them to be partly reoccupied and the 9/1 Mountain Battery are now (July 1883)
in them, The barracks were occupied from March to June 1880 by the 5/8th
Royal Artillery, and the following table shows that, although acclimatized soldiers
and of much more powerful physique than the men of the Rifle Brigade, they
yet suffered abnormally :—
B 357—26