8
MILITARY DEPARTMENT, 13TH OCTOBER 1880, No. 6462.
Water .—The water used for drinking and cooking from wells near the barracks, which
however are efficiently protected from pollution. Though somewhat hard, the water is good,
and it is abundant. Filtration of it through the improved two-chatty system is practised.
Rations.—The rations were of fair quality ; mutton was issued twice a-week. The bread
was received from the Government bakery. The vegetables in the opinion of the medical officer
were not sufficiently varied, were too much restricted to those of two kinds, potatoes and onions.
Cooking.—The cook-houses are on the native plan, with simple utensils and appliances ; the
native cooks prepared the food of the men according to individual taste.
Canteen. —Good beer was obtainable under the liberal rules recently promulgated ; rum
was still allowed to be drawn to a maximum of one dram (3½ oz.) daily per man, in two half-
dram issues.
Clothing.—Though the white cotton suit was usually worn, it was often replaced by one of
serge, and the men on guard had facilities for wearing the one or the other. The use of flannel
shirts or of under-vests was obligatory.
Duties.—Were neither exceptional in kind, nor in amount.
Amusements.—Besides in-door games, cricket, skittles and fives. There is a gymnasium.
The proper test of the perfectness of the sanitary arrangements would be the non-occurrence
of sickness known to be induced by defective arrangements ; in practice this is most obviously
shewn as regards drainage and water by the absence of diarrhœal illness, and so far the health
of the troops at St. Thomas' Mount was well secured. But the method of testing by results is
not applicable any further in this instance owing to the fact that the troops consisted of two
different categories—one-half of the men were new comers, were in their first year of Indian
service, the other half were men of various lengths of residence in India, but more than three-
fourths of them had been over five years in India, and the battery to which they belonged was
in its tenth year of service. The daily sick of the newly-arrived battery was in the rate of
96.0, and that of the other in the rate of 52.8 per 1,000 men. About one-fourth of the admis-
sions into hospital in each of the corps were due to venereal diseases. Fevers, continued and
paroxysmal together, were in almost identical proportions, in the newly-arrived, and in the old
battery. Bowel complaints were a little more common amongst the newly-arrived men, amongst
whom however there were no deaths ; in this battery, of three men invalided, intemperance was
the direct cause in two instances, and a contributing cause in the third.
POONAMALLEE.
Having described the buildings of the depôt of this convalescent station at length in a
previous report, the medical officer in the present confines himself chiefly to a description of
the new hospital taken into occupation in the beginning of the year. He objects to the site, which
consists of made ground, being part of that on which a fort formerly stood ; in excavating for
foundations it was found to be intersected by a large brick drain, long however disused and choked
up. Except as to site nearly everything connected with the hospital—plan, construction, and
fitting up—is said to be most satisfactory. It is a double-storied building, raised on a three-
foot plinth ; proper measures were taken to secure dry foundations and a dry basement. Each
story is surrounded by a verandah twelve feet wide. The lavatories and latrines are placed
at the ends of the building ; though under the same roof as the hospital, they are in effect
detached buildings. The stairs are of stone, and there is a "lift" in the well of the stair-case.
The ventilation is natural, effected by means of the very numerous doors and windows placed
opposite to each other, there is a continuous opening under the ridge of the roof, further there
are swing glazed ventilators in the walls of the wards, a series of air shafts, and openings are
left where the beams rest on the walls or pillars. The lavatories are well fitted, and water is
laid on to them from a well adjacent, and is delivered by gravitation. The latrines are on the
dry-earth system ; the medical officer would have preferred water carriage for the removal of the
soil, but in this he would not be sustained by the opinion of those who have had experience of
the two systems in a locality without drains and without out-fall for disposal of the sewage.
The house drainage is carried off in a suitably constructed brick drain carried round three
sides of the building at a distance of twenty-five feet from the walls ; the drainage matters are
deposited in a cesspit, emptied (it is presumed) daily, the drain is quite disconnected with the
building which it serves, rain-water from the roof is carried into it.
The kitchen is very complete, there is a cook-house fitted with a "Duff's range," a
kitchen proper, a store-room, scullery, and a superintendent's room. Drainage is provided for.
TRICHINOPOLY.
•The troops here consisted of a Battery of Royal Artillery, and of a detachment of Infantry.
• The cantonment is 300 feet above sea level ; the soil on which it stands is laterite, the
immediate environs are cultivated in rice, and there are numerous water-courses connected with
the River Cauvery.