50
which were well arranged and kept. The books and records were all kept in a most
neat and orderly manner, and reflected the greatest credit on the then Sub-Assistant
Surgeon, Mr. C. Pestonjee, for his tidy and business-like habits. The daily average
attendance was between 40 and 50, with every prospect of an increase to that number
as the fact of its existence becomes more generally known. Mr. Pestonjee resigned the
service in March, and was succeeded by Sub-Assistant Surgeon Suruplall Balluckram.
Since the change I have again had an opportunity of examining the dispensary, and
am quite satisfied that it will lose nothing while in charge of the present incumbent. I
visited the dispensary during the hours of attendance, and was much pleased with the
amount of attention Mr. Balluckram paid to his cases individually ; and the fair know-
ledge he seems to possess of medicine. Being his first independent charge he is naturally
a little diffident, but I have no doubt he will do much better as he gradually attains
that confidence in himself which time and experience can alone give. The Barrea
dispensary is in charge of an ex-Hospital Assistant; and at present occupies a house
in the Bazaar. A building however is. in course of erection for its reception, and when
completed will be a very compact one of its class. When passing through Barrea on
my tour I examined this dispensary, and was very well satisfied with the neatness and
order with which both medicines and instruments were kept. The daily average at-
tendance appeared to be about 50. No vaccination was carried on in connection with
it, heretofore, but by permission of Major Barton, I have directed the Hospital As-
sistant to commence vaccination, and sent him lymph for that purpose. The getting
up of this dispensary was altogether the act of the Political Agent, who saw and felt
how necessary something of the kind was in a place so unhealthy. I believe that it
is in contemplation to establish a dispensary also at Loonawarra, where it is very
much required.
Sanitation in Towns and
Districts.
19. While on tour the fact came very forcibly to my notice what an amount of
suffering and mortality might be staved off by some one
with power to enforce a few of the simplest rules of sani-
tation. I speak chiefly of the rural population, and the
villages and hamlets they inhabit, amongst whom there was an amount of sickness in
the past year, extraordinary even in these unhealthy districts. As I said in an earlier
part of this report, for the few months subsequent to the monsoon the people suffered
from malarious fever to an extent previously unknown, and it was fatal to such an
extent that, in one small village of about 25 houses, I was told thirteen children died
from it in about two months. The presence of the fever is easily accounted for by the
late and increased fall of rain, and the superabundance of rank vegetation produced by
it, and can scarcely be helped, as long as cultivation is as confined as it is. But that
the people should suffer to such an extent from it is remediable, and might I think be
easily managed if they could be only induced to keep the spaces around and between
their houses free from this rank vegetation. In the scattered Bheel villages this would
be no very difficult task, as most of the houses are either detached or semi-detached, and
they are generally speaking by the end of the rains partly hidden from view by the rank