40
MEDICAL AND SANITARY REPORT OF THE NATIVE ARMY OF BOMBAY.
7. The building is in good condition; but it has only accommodation for twenty patients.
This number has been frequently exceeded during the past year;
but when the number reached above twenty-one the excess of
patients were treated either in tents or in the spare hospital
assistant's room, one hospital assistant having been absent on
famine duty almost the whole year.
8. The scorbutic taint which some of the men acquired in Aden still manifests itself
during exhausting attacks of illness, and a good many of the
men had a tendency to it during the famine. Four men have
been invalided on account of scurvy. The men have not made as steady a progress in health
as was expected after their return from. Aden, owing to the unhealthy season succeeding
a year of famine.
9. In consequence of the unusually dry weather extending over about eight months,
from September 1876 to May 1877, succeeded by heavy rains,
Belgaum and the surrounding districts have been unusually
unhealthy, cholera having prevailed during the hot months;
and with the rains, when this epidemic began to abate, remittent fever, in some cases re
-sembling typhoid fever, broke out, and continued till the end of the rains, when intermittent
fever began to rage, and still prevails.
10. There were 356 admissions, of whom 261 were the actual number of persons
treated during the year; the others (95) were re-admissions.
There were 19 remaining at the beginning of the year: making
the total treated 375, against 410 of last year. The principal causes of sickness were
malarious fevers,—in which the remittent type predominated,—dysentery, diarrhœa, rheuma
-tism, diseases of the respiratory system and of the liver and spleen. Primary syphilis gave
15 admissions, against 1 of last year; secondary syphilis 2, and gonorrhœa and bubo 5. This
large increase in venereal diseases is due to the presence during the year of a large number
of women who came into the station from the famine districts; very few of the cases were
traced to the registered prostitutes in the bazaar.
1 1 . T h e r e w e r e n i n e d e a t h s — f r o m c h o l e r a f i v e , a n d f r o m r e m i t t e n t f e v e r , b r o n c h i t i s ,
diarrhœa, and copper-poisoning one each. There was one death in
the lines, caused by gunshot wound (suicidal) of the chest, involv
-ing the liver, lungs, and heart. Fragments of the bullet were found lying loosely in the
p o s t e r i o r m e d i a s t i n u m .
12. Cholera, which prevailed to a certain extent in the preceding year, increased in
intensity during the early part of 1877; one case was admitted
in February, four in May, and one in June—in all, six cases.
All these were imported from the districts, the first by a recruit party, and the poor lad who
died was a recruit just coming to join the regiment. The five cases admitted in May and
June occurred in escort parties returning from the districts after escorting treasure, chiefly
from Gokak. This epidemic gradually disappeared as the monsoon set in.
13. There have been 63 primary vaccinations and 11 re-vaccinations; of the former 3
were performed on European children, 57 children belonging to
sepoys, and 3 to the regimental bazaar; all these were successful.
The 9 children re-vaccinated belonged to the regimental bazaar;
5 of the cases were successful.
14. Two men were invalided before a special Board, and eighteen men by the General
Invaliding Board. In all there were twenty men (including two
native officers) invalided during the year; of these, four were
for chronic scurvy, two for irregular action of the heart, two for defective vision, four for
chronic bronchitis, seven for general debility, and one for prolapsus ani. Besides invaliding,
a very large number of men had to be sent away on sick leave, in consequence of their
health being so weakened, after the severe illnesses they had undergone, that it was necessary
to give them leave to proceed to their native country.
15. The cinchona alkaloid has been largely used by me as a substitute for quinine for
the last six mouths or so, and, with the exception of its sickly
odour, I find it to be a valuable remedy—more efficacious than
cinchonidine (which in large doses gives rise to giddiness and
headache), and as good as quinine in the treatment even of the
severer forms of malarial fevers. I give it in the same doses as quinine, viz. five to ten
grains per dose, and up to fifteen grains per day, and in one instance, where the man had an
obstinate attack of tertian fever, the return was effectually checked by giving five grains
three times a day of the cinchona alkaloid, and this result was observed even after quinine
had failed.
Hospital and its immediate
surroundings: present condition,
hygienic and otherwise.
General health and physique.
Influence of climate or local
circumstances.
Details of treated.
Mortality and its causes.
Epidemics.
Vaccination and re-vaccina
-tion.
Invaliding and its causes.
Special observations, new ex
-periences in treatment, sanita
-tion.