60
MEDICAL AND SANITARY REPORT OF THE NATIVE ARMY OF MADRAS.
Statement No. IV shows the admissions and deaths from particular diseases, and their
ratios to strength, in the different stations of the two military commands.
The comparative healthiness of the different stations may be conveniently represented in
the following form :—
Corps and Stations.
Ratio per 1,000 of
Strength of Admissions
and Deaths.
Admitted.
Died.
Detachment, 21st N.I, Kurnool ...
...
...
1257.44
22.06
28th Regiment N.I., Mercara
...
. . . . . .
721.59
19.54
Detachment, 30th N.I., Mysore
...
...
...
573.46
15.49
Bellary
...
...
...
...
...
. . .
565.89
10.84
Bangalore
...
...
...
...
...
...
520.73
7.05
French Rocks
...
...
...
...
...
5 1 6 . 7 2
1 0 . 4 7
The detachment of the. 21st Regiment at Kurnool was in tents, and the camp had to be
removed twice on account of cholera which spread to it from the civil population of the town.
Nineteen cases of cholera occurred in the whole force, of which 8 died, being at the rate of 4.45
admissions and 1.68 deaths per 1000 of strength. In the civil population inhabiting the
same parts of the country, the deaths from cholera were at the rate of 5.50 per 1,000.
Remittent fever has been more prevalent in Bangalore and Mysore, and less so in Mercara, the
French Rocks, and Bellary than in the previous year. Continued fever, with the exception of
of one case at Bellary, has been confined altogether to Bangalore, as in the previous year, and
the total absence of enteric fever both in this year and the previous one is as remarkable as it
is satisfactory.
My own belief is that this immunity from enteric fever is attributable to the system of
conservancy which prevails in the country, a system that excludes covered drains as a rule, and
requires the speedy removal and burial of the solid excreta.
Bowel-complaints, under the heads of dysentery and diarrhoea, have been somewhat less
prevalent in the past than in the preceding year. In 1875 they were in the ratio of 54.5
per 1,000 of strength. In 1876 they were in the ratio of 43.9 per 1,000 of strength. As might
have been expected, they were more prevalent among the men of the 28th Native Infantry, in
the cold damp climate of Mercara, than in any other corps ; but cases of diarrhoea were much
less numerous among them than in the year 1875.
Diseases of the eye, which in the year 1875 amounted to 48 . 93 per mille of strength in
Bellary cantonment, have, in the year under report, been only at the rate of 12.19. This is the
more surprising as the heat, glare and dust which distinguish that bare and barren cantonment
were more than usually troublesome during the last year owing to the failure of the rains.
Bangalore always shows a high percentage of eye diseases, probably due in part to the plague
of eye-flies which at certain periods of the year are very troublesome, and no doubt serve to
disseminate these complaints.
These diseases were equally prevalent at the French Rocks, which resembles Bangalore in
its climate and geographical features, and they have been all but absent in the regiment at
Mercara.
Rheumatism has been more prevalent among the troops in the dry climate of Bellary and
Kurnool than even in Mercara, and much more so than in Bangalore.
This may be partly due to the greater diurnal range of the thermometer during the cool
season at the former stations, and perhaps also to the greater dryness of the atmosphere for a
certain degree of moisture in the air is, according to my experience, rather favorable than
otherwise to rheumatic subjects. Rheumatism is a disease often feigned by the sepoy, but this
cause may be expected to operate pretty equally in all stations.
Wounds and accidents have been fewer this year in Bangalore, but much more numerous in
Bellary than in the year 1875. They amounted in the latter station to as many as 60.31 per
thousand of strength. In the year 1875, Bangalore showed a ratio of 72.71 and Bellary only
37 . 07 per mille. I c a n n o t a s s i g n a n y p a r t i c u l a r c a u s e f o r t h i s d i v e r s i t y .
Venereal diseases amounted to 15.12 per 1,000 in Bangalore, 22.80 in Mercara, 20.33 in
Bellary, and 44.12 at Kurnool. Lock-hospitals exist only in Bangalore and Bellary.