1 5 . P l a n s h a v e b e e n s e n t i n b y t h e E x e c u t i v e E n g i n e e r f o r e n l a r g i n g t h e h o s p i t a l ,
by adding two new wards and a guard-room ; also for new
quarters for the 2nd class hospital assistant and medical
pupil.
Requirements and recommen-
-dations.
POONA DIVISION OF THE ARMY.
33
8. The general health and physique of the regiment may be considered good. The
average height of the regiment is 5 feet 7½ inches. The recruits
who joined this year are, with a few exceptions, very promising.
General health and physique.
9 . T h e s e a s o n h a s b e e n a v e r y t r y i n g o n e , e s p e c i a l l y t o E u r o p e a n s . T h e h e a t w a s v e r y
great during the months of March, April, and May. During the
months of November and December there was a good deal of
variation of temperature, which was the cause of much fever
amongst the natives.
10. Including the sick of the detachments at Ahmedabad and Sadra, the total
number of cases admitted during the year was 662, which
with 12 cases remaining from 1876 gives a total of 674 treated.
The prevailing diseases were—ague 202 cases, rheumatic affections 41, dysentery 37. Of
diarrhœa 23 cases are recorded, and most of these occurred during the hot season, some of
them being of a most severe character. Contusion of the lower extremities furnished the
formidable number of 68; the majority of these were cases of shoe-bite, from wearing il
-
fitting boots.
11. There were four deaths in hospital—one from ague in a feeble and intemperate
subject, and the others from remittent fever, cholera, and
phthisis. Three deaths occurred out of hospital, and were
reported to have been caused by general debility, cholera, and heart disease respectively,
The two former cases occurred in men who were away on leave, and the latter case occurred
in a Subedar who died on his way from Dhulia to Malligaum.
12. Cholera, which had been prevailing in a great many of the villages near Malligaum
all the hot weather, made its appearance in cantonment on the
7th July. Two men were attacked, of whom one died. The
hospital goorga also contracted the disease and died ; then one woman and two children—the
former recovered, but the children died. The disease thus quite left the regiment : but on
the arrival of the left wing from Ahmedabad, on the 8th of September, the disease again
appeared, but it was confined almost solely to the women and children of this wing.
They appeared to have contracted the disease on the road. Five women and two children were
attacked; only one woman died. One sepoy of the left wing was also attacked, but recovered.
The families were put into tents just outside of the cantonment ; the huts they vacated were
completely purified by fumigation, the floors were dug up and made with fresh earth,
and the walls were scraped and whitewashed. After the families had remained about a
fortnight in tents, they were allowed to go back to the lines, and no more cases appeared.
Five cases of small-pox occurred during the year ; the disease was of a mild modified form.
All the patients bore good marks of vaccination.
13. Vaccination has been carefully attended to during the year. The total number of
primary vaccinations was 82, of which 69 were successful ; of
re-vaccinations there were 66, of which 47 were successful and
19 were unsuccessful. At the end of the year only 6 children remained unprotected, and
these were of too tender an age.
14. Thirty men were invalided during the year, from the following diseases :—chronic
rheumatism, chronic bronchitis, old age and debility, weak
eyesight, and rupture. Seventeen men were sent away on sick
certificates, suffering from the following diseases :—one debility, one epilepsy, one rheuma-
- t i s m , t w o a g u e , o n e s c u r v y , f o u r d y s p e p s i a , s i x b r o n c h i t i s , a n d o n e d y s e n t e r y .
1 6 . T h e c i n c h o n i n e m i x e d a l k a l o i d h a s b e e n s u b s t i t u t e d f o r q u i n i n e i n t h e t r e a t m e n t
of ague. It answers very well in mild cases of this disease, but
in the severer forms of ague it fails, and then I have found
quinine succeed generally in checking the disease.
The detachments which were stationed at Peint and Kulwan as treasury guards suffered
very much from malarious fever of a severe type. The former place is notoriously unhealthy
and malarious, and the water is reported to be very indifferent. I am glad to say that both
these detachments were relieved by the police at the close of the year.
Influence of climate or local
circumstances on health.
Details of treated.
Mortality and its causes.
Epidemics.
Vaccination and re-vaccination.
Invaliding and its causes.
Special observations ; new ex- -
periences in treatment ; sanitation.
9 m