132
Exemption of the
Royal Artillery from
the debility.
174. While the 76th Regiment was suffering from these symptoms, indicative
of feeble vital power, and probably also of very general cholera
poisoning, the Principal Medical Officer notes that the men of
the Royal Artillery stationed in the same cantonment were in
excellent health and spirits. Yet this circumstance had not exempted the men of
the Royal Artillery from cholera during the second outbreak in the station.
He thought that mental dejection had something to say to the symptoms. No
sanitary defect in the barracks or their conservancy was brought to light ; but, in
Site of Thayetmyo
Barracks liable to cho-
lera outbreaks.
point of fact, the locality on which the European Barracks are
built, has proved itself to be a spot in which cholera will
always seek its victims. It is possible that the intense heat
of the weather, and the exposure of the men in tents, at the most trying period
of the year, might have accounted for some of the debility and languor prevailing
after the cessation of cholera. The men are reported to have been sober and
very well-behaved during the progress of the outbreak.
Previous CholeraHis-
tory of Thayetmyo.
175. In 1859 (the year of a new outburst of cholera from the endemic area) the
troops of this cantonment suffered. In 1863, when another
epidemic wave started out of Bengal, Her Majesty's 3-60 th
Rifles, then stationed at Thayetmyo, suffered very severely. The epidemic
advance of cholera in 1868 was also felt at Thayetmyo, for one man died in
that year, but early in April 1869, the European Barracks near the river
were struck heavily by cholera, and in 1870, it is clear, from the various reports,
that the disease had not become extinct in the country, and that the out-
break at Thayetmyo was a violent reproduction, or revival, of a localised
cholera. Knowing as we now do that cholera prefers low ground, and the
immediate neighbourhood of the valleys of large rivers for its ravages, it is no
longer a matter of surprise that Thayetmyo should suffer on the occasion of
Thayetmyo situated
in a river basin.
an epidemic invasion. With reference to tins point, Dr. Thomp-
son, the Surgeon of Her Majesty's 76th Regiment, has
recorded the following important statement in reply to some observations of mine
on the localities attacked in the late epidemic :—
Exemption of Native
Infantry occupying the
highest ground.
Europeans' Barrack
occupy the lowest part
of the basin.
" The station lies m a shallow basin, The .Native Infantry is located on the
best ground, namely, on a plateau along the edge of the
basin, while the Royal Artillery and European Infantry are
on the worst, i.e., in the bottom of the basin. The superiority
of the site of the native infantry barracks was particularly
pointed out by Surgeon-Major Timins, senior medical officer, Thayetmyo, in
a special report addressed by him to the Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals,
Pegu Division, dated 14th August 1861. The comparatively low situation of
the existing European Barracks can be best judged of by crossing the river and
looking down on Thayetmyo from the high ground above Allanmyo and
Yuatoung, directly opposite.
" I examined this ground, first, with Colonel Hackett, Commanding, and
Major Twyman, Executive Engineer, in April last, when selecting a site for a
cholera camp ; and, secondly, with these officers and Dr. Skelton, Principal medical
officer, British Medical Service, in June, and we unanimously arrived at the con-
clusion that on sanitary and stratagetical grounds, the ridges above and between
Allanmyo and Yuatoung were, to all appearance, better adapted for the erection