Location and movements of corps.
Detachments.
17
POONA DIVISION OF THE ARMY.
POONA DIVISION.
Average strength present during the year
...
...
. . .
. . .
7 , 4 4 8 . 6
Average daily sick per cent. to the average strength
...
...
2.9
Ratio of mortality per cent. to the average strength
...
...
0 . 5
H . M . ' s 1 s t R e g i m e n t L i g h t C a v a l r y .
POONA..—In medical charge of Surgeon J. MCALISTER ; strength 291.
The head-quarters of the regiment have remained at Poona
throughout the year.
2. There has been no relief of the squadron on outpost
duty at Baroda.
3. No efforts have been made to improve the ventilation of the lines, notwithstan
ding
what has been written and said on the subject in former
annual and special reports during the past six years. This
point was made the chief subject of criticism by the Sanitary Commissioner at his recent
inspection of our camp. At present the huts are equally devoid of the means of assuring a
supply of fresh air, as they are of those necessary to get rid of the foul air. The chief fault
of nearly all the lines for native troops that have been constructed, whether in past years
or more recently, has arisen from an ill-defined idea of the objects to be attained in the con-
struction of such buildings, or at least of the relative importance of these objects. The prin-
cipal object has been to build permanent lines without due regard to the necessity of having
adequate outlets and inlets for air, in order to obtain the largest and most constant inter-
change between the interior and exterior atmosphere. At present light and air can only
enter our huts through the doorway, and this is only 4ft. high and relatively narrow, and the
flooring is in very many of them quite a foot below the outer level. These evils might be
abated by raising the floors, and causing openings to be made in the walls, and the genral
introduction of ridge ventilation, so as to afford the inmates a natural ventilation at night
when the doors are shut. I would also recommend that the small yards in rear of the huts
be removed, as they afford cover for many filthy practices, &c., besides rendering the atmos-
phere of lines unhealthy by obstructing ventilation. But the most searching sanitary in-
spection can have only a palliative effect. The evils are of such a nature that nothing but
the removal of their causes, which will involve the demolition of these viciously constructed
habitations, will produce the desired result.
4.
In former reports I have had occasion to notice, with some detail, the defective and
insufficient system of surface drainage—if system it can be called—
employed throughout the cavalry reservation. Upon only the
principal thoroughfares is any attempt made to carry off artificially even the ordinary rain-
fall, which in very wet seasons like that of 1875, is often sufficient to flood the camp in many
places. The gradual slope of the ground from the site on which the lines are built makes
thorough drainage comparatively easy, though this advantage is as yet but little improved. on.
Small and rudely cut surface drains extend between the double line of huts, also in rear of the
horse lines ; they are constantly filling with the washings of the ground in wet weather, and
choked with slops and dirt getting into them from the yards behind the huts of the married
men. From the want of sufficient fall their contents, of course, cannot be carried off. In
this I think we may find an easy explanation of the rapid spread of malarial disease in the
wet season of 1875, '74, '73, and of cholera and the cognate diseases, dysentery and diarrhœa
in 1872 ; to defective surface drainage must be added the decay of vegetable matter as an
important factor in the production of zymotic exhalation ; particularly is this the case in the
horse lines, where the soil gets saturated to a considerable depth by concentrated organic
Lines.
Drainage.