106
DISPENSARIES IN THE PUNJAB.
[Part III.
Mission dispensaries.
Five mission dispensaries submitted returns and show 9,103 patients
treated, and 181 minor operations. Miss Swain's dispensary at Bareilly treated
1,600 women and children, and of it Dr. Walker writes:—
Wherever dispensaries are started under similar conditions to those of Miss Swain and
Miss Seward, I consider that a grant-in-aid of their work by Government is one of the very.
best methods of securing medical aid of a high class to a large number of native females who
would never seek aid at a Government dispensary under the supervision of a man.
Deputy Surgeons
General reports.
The Deputy Surgeons-General of the Agra, Meerut and Allahabad circles,
in their inspection reports to the Surgeon-General, enter fully into the details
of the institutions under their supervision, and make many valuable suggestions
and discuss the condition of the public health in their respective circles.
They also express themselves satisfied with the manner in which the civil
surgeons under them have carried out their duties.
The graduates of the
medical college,
Calcutta
Dr. J. Fullarton Beatson, Deputy Surgeon-General of the Meerut circle,
writes as follows concerning the conduct and qualifications of the graduates of
the Medical College, who, as assistant surgeons, held charges of sudder dispen-
saries :—
Of the qualifications of these men professionally I entertain a very high estimate,—they
shine many of them both as physicians and surgeons, diagnosing very skilfully, treating most
successfully, and operating with remarkable ease and dexterity. The conduct of each throughout
the year has been without a flaw, and to none of the men now in the circle have I ever had
occasion to convey anything but praise. They are an intelligent, most respectable, and reliable
lot. in the future welfare of whom I take a very sincere and deep interest.
Opinion regarding
the effects of irriga-
tion upon the public
health.
Dr. Beatson expresses a very decided opinion that the outcry concerning the
amount of sanitary evil inflicted on the Saharunpore and Muzaffurnugur districts
by irrigation has been a gross exaggeration.
But (he adds) the population, seeing the greed with which each tale was swallowed,
adroitly kept up the delusion in the hope of obtaining remission of the revenue, because of their
inability to reap the fruits of their labours in the field, through bodily weakness due to disease.
I doubt nevertheless if a single stalk of any cereal ever rotted on the ground. The
" hobby" has had its day, and it is now buried so noiselessly by its former riders that only
personal acquaintance with their clamour could persuade one of its reality.
Government Resolu-
tion.
His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor, in passing his orders upon the report
of the Inspector-General of dispensaries, expresses his gratification at the
general working of medical institutions in the provinces, and he conveys his
thanks to Dr. Walker, but he comments upon the untrustworthiness of the
returns of branch dispensaries, and the working of these minor institutions, in
the following language—
As this is the first time your report has been laid before Sir John Strachey since he has
assumed the government of these provinces, I am to take the opportunity of expressing his
opinion that there are no institutions more valuable than dispensaries when properly managed
by competent men; but His Honor cannot help having misgivings that this is seldom the
case with branch dispensaries, which he fears are often worth very little. Their returns are
untrustworthy. The class of hospital assistants in charge of them have, as a rule, no surgical
skill, and in many cases they cannot even know enough to enable them to make a proper use
of the insufficient stock of medicine at their command. To the mere dispensing of physic
the Lieutenant-Governor attaches little importance. The great thing is to give the maximum
of relief in surgical cases, and it is in this direction that the Lieutenant-Governor chiefly
hopes for progress.
DISPENSARIES IN THE PUNJAB.
Surgeon-Major A. M, Dallas, the Inspector General of dispensaries, sub-
mitted the report to the local Government,
Number and classifi-
cation of institution.
Number relieved.
At the close of the year the number of dispensaries was 120, being an
increase of 4 upon the number remaining at the end of 1872. These insti-
tutions are classed as follows:—15 belong to the 1st class, 32 to the 2nd, 55
to the 3rd, 17 are supported wholly by municipal or local funds, and finally,
there is the Mayo hospital at Lahore. All the classified dispensaries receive
grants-in-aid, and the Mayo hospital is almost entirely supported from provincial
funds. These institutions collectively afforded medical relief to 825,885 per-
sons, being an excess of 43,087 upon the total of 1872, but the increase was
confined to out-patients. The number of in-patients shows a slight decrease
from 26,411 to 25,611, the result probably of the comparative healthiness of