for issue at the medical depôt, and it is intended that on every occasion of an
epidemic, or long-continued sickness at a station, the medical officers of the
troops there are to be required to submit an analysis of the water-supply. In
Assam the Deputy Surgeon-General and the medical officers, both civil and
military, are using their best endeavours to promote the only proper form in
which water should be available for domestic use, viz., tapped at a source of
comparative purity, conveyed for distribution in covered channels, and protected
from local contamination. But it happens here, as elsewhere, that the perver
-
sity of the people, their indolence or ignorance defeats the best efforts for their
welfare; and it is reported that they are inveterate to use the polluted stagnant
tanks about their dwellings rather than carry the pure water from the hydrants
to their doors. In Dacca the extension of the town filtered-water to cantonments
has not been carried out, if indeed the water-works are as vet efficient in the
town alone, and the Medical Officer, 10th Native Infantry, at Dacca, has been at
some pains to arrange a floating filter in the river itself which will supply com
-
paratively pure drinking and cooking water to the garrison. The water-supply
at Peshawur remains in the same state of open courses.
27. As regards the troops in the field, there is abundant evidence that they
have had to undergo every variety and risk in drinking water: absolute want in
the Sind desert; water bitter, brackish, saltish, with chlorides, sulphates, nitrates;
water which had been stagnant and loaded with solids; water bright, sparkling
and pure from the melted snow. At one place, Ali Musjid, the water was said
to carry antimony in solution; but I conjecture that the peculiar colic which
ensued in drinking it was more the result of initiation to cold rations and snow
water than to metalloid, salts. At all events, the existence of antimony in the
Khyber river water at Ali Musjid has not been chemically demonstrated, and the
suspicion of it has died away since the garrison has been supplied with better
food and cooking. Some attempts have been made by medical officers to filter
running water roughly by means of storage tanks in the stony river-courses.
Surgeon-Major Chesnaye contrived in this way to obtain clear water for drinking,
at Jumrood, apart from the stream commonly used by transport animals and
followers. The brackish water in the Kutch district was so loaded with salines
that vegetables were with difficulty cooked, and the dhall which was issued to
the native troops was harder after half an hour's boiling than when first put in.
The water-supply along the new route viâ Thull Chotiali is reported to have
been very bad at many of the camps.
28. The diet of the native troops under circumstances where all food
required transport and necessitated the supply of every trifle which helps to
stimulate appetite or aid digestion has occupied the attention of the medical
officers of the Army. Unfortunately regiments seem to have been so differently
placed to procure extras, and circumstanced as regards general health, climate and
medical recommendations, that it is difficult to define a single ration which could
be recommended to all. In the Eastern Frontier districts the excessive price
of milk is regretted, and its want as an article of food dwelt upon; rice is very
expensive also, and were it not for potatoes the Assam regiments would be in
a bad way. Although in the cantonments of the settled provinces nothing has
occurred regarding the food-supply of the native troops which requires special
notice, the year was one of high prices generally, caused alike by a deficient
harvest and the drain of food staples to the North-Western Frontier. The
question whether a sepoy stints himself in food below what is necessary for a
soldier's duty may now, I consider, be pronounced settled. The enquiry has
lasted through some years and under many aspects, and the result points clearly
to the opinion that while individual sepoys, under special inducement of
saving, penury, and possibly religion, do stint their appetite, the great body of
men do not. Indeed, it may be stated that the regimental checks to underfeed
-
ing are now so complete that such a practice is impossible, except among
indi-
viduals. In those instances where a whole regiment (improbable in itself)
has been reported to be sickly from underfeeding, the real explanation, as in
the 38th Native Infantry, is, that the men cannot eat their usual diet in full,
simply from their sickly state of health; and that the medical history has
preceded, and not followed, the use of small rations.