Sanitary ar
-rangements.
Diet.
Duty.
Drill.
Sanitary con
-dition of lock
-up-rooms.
Vaccination.
Epidemic dis
-eases.
Hospital.
General con
-clusion.
74
MEDICAL AND SANITARY REPORT OF THE NATIVE ARMY OF MADRAS.
could be procured in the hot season, the other four yielding but a small quantity early in the
morning. The quality was considered to be good.
Sanitary arrangements .—The sanitary arrangements in the lines of the regiment were
properly supervised, and all that could be was done during the year, though the lines are
so faultily laid out, and the huts of such an inferior description that if it should be deemed
necessary to continue locating a corps there, they should be re-built.
Diet .—Provisions were cheap and plentiful, excepting vegetables, which were scarce as
usual at Bellary. The troops received monthly compensation for rice.
Duty .—During the cold and rainy seasons there were three parades a week usually held,
but during the hot season only two, in addition to attendance at stables morning and evening
and regimental guards, which duties did not impair the health of the regiment. The average
number of nights the men had in bed was 3¾.
Drill
.—The parades usually lasted from 5-30 to 7 A.M., and stables for an hour morning
and evening, which did not exercise an unfavorable influence on the health of the European
Officers or Native Ranks of the regiment during the year.
Sanitary condition of lock-up-rooms .—The sanitary condition of the prison cells (conjee
-houses) was satisfactory as regards cubic space, ventilation, and cleanliness during the year.
Vaccination.—Vaccination has been regularly practised amongst the children of the
sepoys and camp-followers: 116 were operated on, viz., 45 sepoys children and 71 camp
-followers during the year, all successfully, excepting a sepoy's child and three camp-followers.
No cases of small-pox occurred among the men of the regiment.
Epidemic diseases .—During the last quarter of the year dengue fever prevailed to
some extent in the regiment, 19 cases having occurred among the sepoys and 12 among the
camp-followers, to which occurrence no local causes can be attributed, as the disease appears
to have been prevalent over great portion of Southern India. All the cases which presented
themselves resembled each other very closely. The patients almost all experienced fever for
two or three days, preceded by a sense of chilliness or rigors. On the second day of which it
was accompanied by head-ache, or sense of heaviness in the head, injected conjunctiva and
pain in all the joints, which symptoms in nearly every instance subsided in the course of six
or seven days from the period of its commencement, leaving the patients debilitated, from
which, however, they soon recovered. The head-ache and injected conjunctiva subsiding
simultaneously with the fever and gradually the pain in the joints.
Under the head of "Climate," it has been notified that small-pox prevailed at the
station during the first-half of the year, and it has to be recorded here that, though no
cases of that disease took place in the regiment among the European Officers or Native
ranks, yet 59 cases occurred among the camp-followers, viz., three children of a Trumpeter
and 56 children of the grass-cutters, of which 46 were of the "distinct" and 13 of the
"confluent" type. One boy died from the latter form of the disease whilst under
treatment in hospital, whose case terminated fatally by asphyxia caused by œdema glotidis,
and two died from the sequelæ some period after being discharged from hospital on account
of that disease. One from "general dropsy" and the other from "amæmia," both probably
from lack of a generous diet and careful nursing.
Considering that the greater portion of these cases took place during the hot season, and
that all these children were treated in tents, even if the two cases which subsequently
terminated fatally are included, the mortality was small, and it may, therefore, be worthy of
n o t i c e t h a t E u r o p e a n S o l d i e r s ' t e n t s w e r e u s e d a s h o s p i t a l s i n s t e a d o f s e p o y s ' r o w t i e s .
Hospital .—The ventilation of the hospital was sufficiently good. There was no over
-crowding of the hospital wards. The drainage of the site of the hospital is naturally good.
The latrines were kept clean. The dry-earth system and the periodical application of coal
tar were carried out. Water for the use of the patients in hospital was brought by the
regimental puckallies.
General conclusions .—The health of the 2nd Regiment Light Cavalry during the past
year may be considered to have altogether been favorable.
A few cases of dengue fever, which prevailed at the station as already mentioned in
the proper place, occurred among time native ranks of the regiment, but no cases of small
-pox did, which also prevailed at it for several months.
The three deaths which took place during the year all occurred in the month of May.
The first happened to a sepoy, aged 44, a prematurely worn-out looking
m a n f r o m c h r o n i c d i a r r h œ a , w h o h a d b e e n s u f f e r i n g f r o m i t t h r e e m o n t h s p r i o r t o h i s c o m i n g t o
hospital; whose constitution had been utterly ruined by having long been addicted to the
baneful habit of opium-eating.
The second occurred to a sepoy, also aged 44, from remittent fever, whose previous
health had been greatly impaired by the habitual use of gunjah, and who otherwise might
have recovered. His case was complicated with bronchitis, and he died suddenly from
asphyxia, caused by the accumulation of mucus in the trachœa which he had not the power
to expectorate.
The third happened to a sepoy, aged 50, a remarkably robust looking man, who was in
hospital for a local injury from which he had just recovered and was about to be discharged
on account of it; was in excellent spirits, and appeared to be in good health, when he