CALCUTTA MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS.
9
Department I noticed that when cholera appears among troops in cantonments
it usually finds most of its victims among those men, women, and children
who are not living under the strict military discipline or under the same
sanitary rules to which the private soldier is subject, and the conservancy
arrangements of the quarters of these people are often found to be very defective
in spite of daily or weekly inspections by officers appointed for the purpose. It
is also a very singular circumstance that while 11 cases of cholera occurred
among patients in the Campbell Hospital in 1888 and 18 cases in 1889,
there was not a single case in 1890. It would be very unwise to draw any
general or special inference in such a matter from the experience of one year,
but it is certainly very remarkable that coincident with this immunity of
the patients from cholera attacks there was a new latrine system at work at this
hospital for the whole year, and therefore I am hopeful that when the present
system of conservancy at the General Hospital undergoes still further improve-
ment, the occurrence of cholera among patients under treatment for other diseases
will become a thing of the past.
16. Dysentery was somewhat less prevalent in 1890 than in the previous
year, the largest number of cases having been treated in the Campbell Hospital,
where 622 were admitted with 244 deaths, showing how fatal this disease is
among the poorest classes of the community.
17.
Diarrhœa was also less common in 1890, but the death-rate from it
differed little from that of previous years. Most of the cases were treated in the
Campbell and Howrah Hospitals.
18. Malarial fevers increased during the year under report, but not to any
great extent, and were most marked in the Campbell Hospital, where they were
a frequent cause of admission.
19. Venereal affections.—A considerable number of these affections are
treated in the voluntary lock-hospitals, which are no longer included in
the scope of this report, and as only a comparatively small portion come under
treatment in the medical institutions proper, it is somewhat difficult to form
an estimate from the returns as to any increase or decrease in their prevalence
generally in Calcutta during the year. A change in the system of classifying
these diseases, which has been introduced in the returns of 1890, adds to the
difficulty, but taking the total figures of the Calcutta hospitals, including those of
the voluntary lock-hospitals and the Bhowanipore Dispensary, I find that there
were 12,326 persons suffering from venereal affections of all kinds under
treatment in 1890, against 12,793 in 1889. The number of admissions at
the voluntary lock-hospitals increased in 1890 by 153 patients, and also at the
Presidency General Hospital by 54 patients, and in the Police Hospital by 45 ;
but these increments are more than counterbalanced by the diminution in the
numbers treated at the Medical College Hospital, the Campbell Hospital, the
Mayo Institutions, and the Bhowanipore Dispensary. It cannot therefore be said
that there is any clear evidence that these diseases are increasing among the
general community of Calcutta : on the contrary, the figures of the returns for
1890 rather tend to show that they are decreasing.
20. Tubercular affections.—According to the returns these have been more
common during the past year, but a part of the increase is due to a change
in the classification introduced at the Campbell and Police Hospitals, where all
such affections were formerly entered under the comprehensive heading "Lung
Diseases, " but are now more correctly placed under their own distinctive
head.
21. Respiratory affections generally show a slight decrease, but at some
of the hospitals they were very prevalent, and many cases of pneumonia,
consequent upon an epidemic of influenza, came under treatment at the Medical
College and Presidency General Hospitals. In this connection, Dr. Crombie
remarks :—"Pneumonia was unusually prevalent among all classes, probably
as a consequence, remote as well as immediate, of the influenza epidemic of the
spring of 1890." Dr. Birch also notices a similar prevalence at the Medical
College Hospital.
22. Leprosy.—Only 69 cases were treated during the year in the Calcutta
hospitals, and nearly all of them in the Campbell Hospital, where some attempt
at segregation is made. These probably form a very small proportion of the