SIND DIVISION OF THE ARMY.
85
14, Thirty-two men were invalided during the year. The causes were as follows:—Old
and worn-out 8, debility 7, lumbago 5, ague 2, scurvy 2, chronic
rheumatism 2, emphysema 1, phthisis pulmonalis 1, epileptic
vertigo 1, varicose veins 1, and 2 for physical disability. Rheumatic affections were the chief
cause, while much of the invaliding for debility was caused by the weakening effects of the
fever season at Sholapur last year.
15. A system of surface drainage of the lines is urgently required, the lines being
built on rock. The water used for cooking purposes is thrown
on the streets and left to soak or dry in the wind and sun.
It is also certain that some bathing occurs in the lines which
cannot be prevented, and it is more than probable that every sepoy does not go as far as the
latrine to urine if the night is cold. For these reasons a system of drains is necessary.
Should this be executed, I would recommend that the U-shaped drain should be adopted,
as being most easily kept clean.
The latrines should be altered. The front and rear walls might be lowered a foot with
great advantage to ventilation and no loss of decency. A. sufficient number of low openings
might be made through the bottom of the front wall, so as to procure a current of air through
the lower part of the building, and the screen walls which block up the entrances might be
curtailed off 3 feet of their length. The system of oblong pans does not answer with natives,
for I am informed by numbers of Pathaus that they, like other natives, use the lota when
water is procurable, as in this station. A stone placed at a good angle is certainly the best,
with a nulla posteriorly so inclined as to quickly run off fluids into a moveable covered
receptacle.
The buildings are roofed in, which I cannot believe to be an advantage in a climate
where rainfall is the exception. A very high temperature, such as is engendered by the
sun's rays, hinders decomposition, with the additional advantage of rapidly drying the
excreta. The inhabitants of this town resort to the roofs of their dwellings for the purposes
of defecation, with the effect of producing rapid desiccation of the excreta, and causing
no nuisance at the time. This is of course a very objectionable plan in other respects, but
serves as an illustration.
The drippings from the water hydrant supplying the lines fills a small pond. This
water has to be removed occasionally and scattered over the surrounding plain. It would be
well if this pond be made permanent, so as to save the water for bathing purposes.
The overflow water from the Indus, which is utilised for nourishing the trees, has also
been led into a tank for the sepoys to bathe in. This might still be accomplished by the
cutting of a channel to this tank without flooding all the surrounding land. The malarial fever
in this station no doubt depends on this water being brought quite up to the Cantonments;
and there is, I think, also no doubt that this could be easily prevented by the erection of low
bunds in a few well-chosen spots. The trees within 300 yards might not perhaps be so
verdant, but this surely cannot be a matter of great importance compared to the evils it
would combate. Trees manage to grow on the cantonment level without any annual flooding,
while agriculture would not be interfered with, since few fields exist within 300 yards of the
Cantonments, and it is not from this form of irrigation that the evil effects arise. The removal
of the hospital to a site posterior to its present one, and the raising of it on a better plinth,
has been proposed on two or three occasions, the chief objections to it being its low plinth.
and proximity to the lines.
But the hospital is a good one, in very fair repair, and removal backwards would bring
it close to the Sudder Bazaar, besides the expense of the proceeding. The Staff Hospital,
to which the soldiers of the Belooch Depôt have had to go for treatment during the past
year, is a good pucka brick building placed on an excellent solid plinth. It is on high
ground, but requires roof ventilation: it is well removed from the lines and the bazaar, and
has more accommodation for the 2nd class hospital servants than the line hospital. Again,
it is placed at a distance of more than 1½ miles from syces and Commissariat followers' lines,
which is most inconvenient. If the latter used the present hospital of the 3rd Regiment, it
would lessen this distance by rather more than a quarter of a mile, while the regimental
patients would in the Staff Hospital occupy a better building free from the objection of too
close a proximity to the lines.
16. The large amount of malarial fever offered a favourable opportunity for testing the
value of drugs, and the following table, drawn up from notes of
cases treated during the year, shows the results of three drugs.
Only cases treated from the first by the drugs named are
included. Thus quinine being a costly drug, few cases were treated primarily by it, and only
v
Invaliding, and its causes.
Requirements and
recommen-
dations.
Special observations in treat
-ment, &c.