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I am equally confident that until measures are taken to reduce moisture in
the soil and to allow its free permeability by air at all seasons of the year, the
efficiency of the Army will be, as now, year after year impaired by preventible
sickness.
The question of dealing with malaria-producing sources beyond the limits
of cantonments is a much more difficult matter, and I quite allow that it would
be out of the power of Government to undertake at once the sub-soil drainage
of vast tracts of territory. I fear that this great source of much of the disease
among the native as well as among the European population is without practical
remedy; but if Government were to set the example in camps, and by so
doing demonstrate to the people of India the great advantage to be derived
from such a course, I have no doubt that in course of time, though this may
perhaps be still far distant, such action will surely be taken. England itself two
Or three centuries ago was an intensely malarious country.
" James I. and Oliver Cromwell, says Murchison, both died of ague; and the latter of
these rulers, speaking of ague, makes use of the following oft-quoted words : matrem pietis-
sitnam, fratres, sorores, ancillas, nutrices, conductitias, quotquot erant intra eosdem nobiscum
parietes, acfere omnes ejusdem ac vicinorum pagorum incolas, hocvenenoinfectos et decutnbentes
vidi. The country surrounding London was in Cromwell's time as marshy as the fens of
Lincolnshire now are. But at the present day owing to the almost universal drainage and
cultivation of the soil agues have, save in a few isolated districts, almost vanished from this
country."
I cannot but believe that as education spreads the intelligence of the natives
will lead them to adopt similar measures, but they cannot be expected to believe
in the benefits conferred by under draining a soil, unless Government sets the
example. For the present the only practical course with reference to in-
sanitary conditions of the country beyond the limits of cantonments appears to
be that due care should be taken in the selection of the site of barracks and to
see that they are not unusually exposed to malaria-producing causes arising
beyond the boundaries of the cantonment. Something may perhaps be effected
by the extension of tree planting and in paying especial attention to keeping the
main channels of the surface drainage free; but beyond this I fear but little can
at present be done.
It surely requires no argument to prove that a damp barrack must be an
unhealthy barrack. Roofs which leak should be reconstructed, whilst the
verandahs should be protected from rain beating in. Gutters round the eaves of
the roofs are required to prevent the storm water dripping from them, and the roof
water should be carried to a distance from the barracks through an impervious
channel.
It is too late now for measures to be taken to provide air perflation under
the ground floor of barracks; but the top layer of the solid matter with which
the plinths are filled might be taken out for a certain depth and be filled in,
as suggested by the Army Sanitary Commission, with good Portland cement con-
crete. Many of the barracks are injudiciously ventilated, the men being exposed
to draughts whilst lying on their cots. If the doors recommended by the Army
Sanitary Commission and by Mr. Lumsdaine were to be constructed, much 6f this
would be obviated.
Iron receptacles below the spouts for bathing rooms in barracks should not
stand in masonry pits but on the ground, the plinth ought always to be of
sufficient height to allow of this arrangement, but in many of the barracks it is
too low. In such cases a low but long receptacle might be made to catch the bath-
room water, or, better still, it should be discharged direct into the puckaul.
No wash-houses should be under the same roof as the dormitories, and in
barracks, where this is the case, separate wash-houses should be provided. The
wastage water from the wash-houses should not be deposited on the ground; it
might be utilized in watering roads if it cannot be carried through a drain to a
distance.
I regard, as I have previously said, the present standard latrine as a distinct
disease cause, and I consider it to be very probably one of the sources of enteric fever.