55
NORTHERN DIVISION OF THE ARMY.
4. The water supply is obtained from numerous wells near the lines. These wells are
free from any source of contamination. The water contains a
quantity of chlorides, but its quality is, in the majority of the
wells, considered wholesome. During the hot season some of the wells run dry.
5. The food consists of meat of fair quality, fish, and
ordinary country vegetables and fruits.
6 . P a r a d e s , g u a r d - m o u n t i n g , p i c q u e t d u t y . T h e y d o n o t e x e r t a n y b a d e f f e c t s o n
health. Average number of nights in bed—6. There is a regi-
mental talimkhana , which is used by the men and recruits.
7 . T h e r e g i m e n t a l h o s p i t a l s t a n d s i n a s h a d y s p a c i o u s c o m p o u n d t o t h e s o u t h o f t h e
lines, and some five hundred yards distant from them. It has
two wards, having accommodation for thirty sick, with good ven
-
tilation. There is a verandah on each side of the building.
8. The general health and physique of the men during the past year has not been satis
-
factory. It is evident that the climate of Guzerat is telling
on their constitution. There has been more sickness than in
previous years.
9 . I a m o n l y a b l e t o s t a t e t h a t s o o n a f t e r t h e a r r i v a l o f t h e w i n g a t A h m e d a b a d t h e
rainfall had great influence in causing fever of a malarious type
amongst the men, and the cold winds brought on complications,
such as pneumonia, bronchitis, &c.
10. The total treated during the year numbered 814. The prevailing causes of sickness
wer—malarious fevers 253 cases, rheumatism 71, eye and lung
diseases 154 and 58 respectively, and dysentery and diarrhœa 36.
11. There were fifteen deaths—seven from cholera, two each from pneumonia and re
-
mittent fever, and one each from hepatitis, diarrhœa, small-pox,
and epilepsy.
12. Cholera broke out in the regimental lines on the 27th October. The last case ad
-
mitted was on the 1st December. There were altogether six
-
teen admissions, with seven deaths. The disease was throughout
of a virulent character, and the origin of the outbreak is difficult to determine. There were
fifteen cases of small-pox, with one death—the only confluent case.
Water supply.
Food.
Duties, exercise, and amuse
-
ments: their effects on health.
Hospital and its immediate sur
-
roundings.
General health and physique.
Influence of climate or local
circumstances on health.
Details of treated.
Mortality and its causes.
Epidemics.
Vaccination and re-vaccination.
13. There were sixty-six children successfully vaccinated
during the past year, and forty-nine men were re-vaccinated.
14. Fifty-eight men were invalided, for the following causes:—Fevers two, rheumatic
affections twelve, eye diseases two, lung diseases six, ulcer one,
old age and debility thirty-five.
Invaliding and its causes.
Requirements and recommend-
ations.
15. The requirements are a female ward, and a ward for
the treatment of special diseases.
Note on the outbreak of Cholera in the Detachment at Sadra, in charge of
Apothecary A. S. DESOUZA.
A man of the detachment 22nd Regiment N. I. was attacked with symptoms of
cholera at a place called Paratia, midway between Ahmedabad and Sadra, and was brought
into this station on the morning of the 16th October 1877, and the detachment itself marched in
an hour and a half after. On the morning of the 18th idem a woman was attacked. Both the
man and woman, I learnt from inquiries, had been suffering for some days previously from
diarrhœa. On the 22nd idem the detachment was moved into camp, and between the 18th
and 22nd there were four more attacked. On the night of the 22nd a woman was attacked in
camp, and no other case occurred until the night of the 31st idem; diarrhœa, however,
continued more or less, and did not disappear until the detachment was again moved to a
fresh encamping-ground, this place being higher and dryer than the first spot.
After the detachment had been at the fresh camp but a few days, both diarrhœa and
ague cases became less frequent, and finally disappeared a fortnight later. The first case
of cholera among the civil population occurred on the morning of the 18th October, or two
days after the arrival of the detachment in the village of Sadra, the house in which it
occurred being nearly half a mile from the lines and south of it; the direction of the wind was