Overcrowding, accommodation,
and defects.
Hospital water-supply.
Sickness, mortality, and invaliding.
Epidemics.
15. None.
Food.
NORTHERN DIVISION OF THE ARMY.
5. Cheap and abundant, except in the hot season, when
vegetables are scarce and very dear.
Duties and their effect on health.
6. Duties not excessive.
7. A gymnasium taken over from the 23rd Regiment when we relieved them, affords
amusement and exercise unfortunately only to a few men who
go in for gymnastics. If all recruits and men up to 15 years'
service were obliged to go through a few exercises daily, it
would improve the physique of the men greatly.
Exercise, amusement, and oc
-cupation .
8. Lock-up rooms and cells according to the standard
plan.
Lock-up rooms and cells.
9 . W e m a r c h e d o n D e l h i i n N o v e m b e r , a n d w e r e o b l i g e d t o l e a v e o v e r a 1 0 0 m e n
in hospital who were suffering from intermittent and remittent
fever; even then we had a great many admissions on the march
from the same diseases.
10. The hospital is placed in an open plain on high ground without a tree near it: the
consequence is, that in the hot weather it is a perfect oven, and
in the cold season it is exceedingly cold. I brought this to the
notice of the Cantonment Committee, and they very kindly gave Rs. 50 to plant trees as I
liked round the hospital. The ground, however, is hard rock, and blasting is necessary, so
that it took over a month to make the holes necessary for putting in trees and filling them
with earth.
Marches.
Hospital and its surroundings.
The hospital is well built and ventilated, and the verandahs
were used for patients to prevent overcrowding in the
wards.
Water-supply from the hospital well, the water of which
at certain seasons is slightly brackish.
11. There were 1,140 admissions and 4 deaths; the per
-centage of treated to strength was 172.8, and the average
number of daily sick was 33.24. Thirty men were invalided.
12. The principal cause of sickness was fever, generally of the intermittent type, which
in about 20 per cent. of the cases, merged into a low form of
remittent fever; there were 730 admissions from this cause
with 1 death. I have an idea that the well water of the Mahadeo tank, which contains
much vegetable matter from decomposition of the leaves, &c., which fall into it, is in some
way a predisposing cause of the fever, as the greater number of cases were drinkers of this
water. Steps will be taken on our return to ascertain this and any other likely cause. To
the same causes probably are attributable the diarrhœa, boils, &c., &c.
Principal causes of sickness.
Principal causes of mortality.
13. Enteric fever caused one death and remittent fever
another; one case of sudden death was from a fatty heart, and
the fourth from heat apoplexy.
14. Rainfall is scanty, and during and immediately after its cessation intermittent and
remittent fever are rife. In August there were 41 admissions,
and the peculiarity was that nearly all the cases were admitted
with all the symptoms of cholera, and yet a dose of castor-oil invariably within 24 hours
changed the symptoms to those of severe remittent fever. In September there were 69
admissions from fever, generally accompanied with diarrhœa and great prostration. In
October there were 144 admissions with diarrhœa and in some cases vomiting as its accom
-
paniments. In November there were 182 admissions. We left for Delhi on the 22nd,
leaving 124 men behind in hospital: we had a daily average of about 40 fever cases on the
march, and in December we had 108 admissions. Four marches out of Delhi on the 10th,
we were joined by about 90 convalescents from Nusseerabad, who were sent to us by train,
and nearly all these suffered again from fever while in Delhi, where it was exceedingly cold.
Influence of rainfall.
Vaccination and re-vaccination.
16. Was carried on by the station vaccinator, Total
vaccinations 24, successful 20, unsuccessful 4 ; re-vaccination
none.