39
MYSORE DIVISION.
1866, was 12.17 inches, the lowest in 1863 being 9.8, and the highest in 1864, 15.9.* In
point of fact, the rainfall of the year is considered almost unprecedented at this station. It
is said to be fully 25 years since the tanks received so large a supply of water. In the fort
ditch the water level reached the highest known level, topped the calingulah or waste weir,
and for some hours threatened to breach it. This was not so much the result of an excessive
annual fall as of heavy downpours within a few consecutive days. The total number of
rainy days for the year was 62.
PUBLIC HEALTH.
Prevalence of
dengue.
Prevalence of dengue.—The more important feature of the year in relation to public
health is the invasion of India by "dengue," which has spared neither presidency, but
extended through Madras, Bombay, Bengal and Burmah. The disease was introduced into
this presidency from Aden, and the first authentic account we have of it is from the pen of
Surgeon Sparrow, H. M.'s 89th Regiment, who recounts the arrival of a detail of troops at
Cannanore in a ship recently from Aden, where the disease was prevailing. The Inspector
-
General will have before him all the details of the spread of the disease through this pre
-
sidency, so I confine myself to commenting upon it, as it has affected the military and civil
population of the two army divisions under my medical superintendence, and first as regards
the troops.
Mysore Division.—The only station in the Mysore Division visited by the epidemic is
Bangalore. In that cantonment 333 cases occurred amongst
the native troops as in the margin. The disease had, prior to
its invading the troops, appeared in a moderate degree amongst
the civil community. As numerous convalescents from Madras,
where the disease was prevailing very extensively, sparing but a
small section of the community, European or Native, visited the station, it may, I think, be
pretty safely asserted that it was thus introduced; but it did not put on epidemic features
till weeks after the advent of the first convalescents from other places, and even at the
height of its prevalence but a comparatively small section of the community suffered.
Is it that the climate of the elevated plateau of Mysore is inimical to the maturation
and propagation of the "contagion" of this specific disease ? From such accounts of the dis
-
ease as I have access to, it would certainly appear that the heat and moisture of the sea
-
board are necessary, or peculiarly favorable, to that extension amongst a community which
has marked the prevalence of the affection at Quilon, Trichinopoly, Madras, and other places
in this presidency. This is a point which doubtless the Inspector-General, or the Sanitary
Commissioner, from the reports before them of the whole presidency, will be able to deter
-
mine. Certainly the disease has spared the community of Bangalore to an extent not
experienced at any place which it visited below the ghauts.
The first case recorded amongst the troops (Native) at Bangalore occurred in the week
ending the 2nd August, when a case occurred in the 36th Regiment. Six weeks elapsed before
any other case was recorded, but in the week ending the 20th September two cases were
admitted into the hospital of the Sappers and Miners, and from this date it became generally,
though very moderately, prevalent amongst the troops, and continued to prevail at the close
of the year. The incidence of the disease was principally experienced by the Sappers and
Miners, which regiment furnished 220 out of the 330 cases. This regiment, as the Inspector
-
General knows, is located on St. John's Hill, in which locality the disease prevailed rather
extensively also amongst the civil community. The three regiments occupying the lines
on the slope of the Ulsoor Valley suffered in different ratios. The 23rd, which regiment
suffered so much at Quilon before its arrival at this station, contributed only 17 cases, and
these were exclusively from the detachment which came from Trichoor. The 36th Regiment
contributed 33, and the 39th 63 cases.
It is not possible to give the numbers of cases amongst the civil population of the
bazaars and lines of Native corps; but a considerable number Came under treatment at the
Bowring Civil Hospital, and the Surgeon, Dr. Oswald, himself contracted the disease.
A report of this nature, which must necessarily be brief and concise, is not the place in
which to enter upon a history of the disease in its purely medical aspect; but I may remark
that it did not present the virulence of type it assumed at other stations below the ghauts
neither the febrile nor rheumatic elements were, according to my own experience, so severe
as they are described to have been in the plains; and I have witnessed none of that complete
crippling of the affected joints which marked the cases of so many convalescents from the
plains who visited this station. It is not possible to fix the percentage of cases in which
the characteristic scarlatinoid eruption occurred. In the dark skin of the native the erup-
t i o n i s n o t r e a d i l y d e t e c t e d , b u t i n m a n y c a s e s I w a s d i s p o s e d t o a d m i t i t s e x i s t e n c e w h e n
m e d i c a l o f f i c e r s h a d n o t n o t i c e d i t , o r d i d n o t c o n s i d e r i t t o b e p r e s e n t . B y t h e r e t u r n s
Sappers and Miners . . . 220
23rd Regiment W.L.I. . . .
17
36th
do.
N.I. . . .
33
39th
do.
do. . . .
63
Mysore Divi
-
sion.
* Report by Sanitary Commissioner for Madras. I have access to no later returns.
By the report by the Army Sanitary Commissioner, the average for 19 years ending 1859 is given at 21.67
inches, but of late years the fall has been very much below that.