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SKETCH OF THE MEDICAL HISTORY OF THE NATIVE ARMY OF BOMBAY.
The water-supply is good in quantity but the quality is suspicious.
Prevailing diseases have been intermittent fever and dengue: of the latter no cases are
now under treatment.
Vaccination has been carefully and successfully carried out in all corps.
The accommodation for troops is reported to be sufficient by the various medical officers in
charge. The lines of the 8th Regiment are in a bad state, but as new lines in a different
locality are to be built, it is not necessary to refer to any details. It has been recommended
by the Commanding Officer and Medical Officer of the 1st Regiment Light Cavalry, that new
syce lines be built.
With reference to conservancy, the Medical Officer 1st Grenadiers reports conservancy
system as good; but, at the same time, states that he considers the latrines are placed so near
to wells from which the men draw drinking-water, that the purity of water-supply is endangered.
1st Grenadiers, 1st Light Cavalry, 17th Regiment, and Staff Hospital conservancy ar-
rangements are good; and 8th Regiment conservancy arrangements good; but the well from
which the principal number of the men draw their water-supply is too near the trenches used
for deposits.
DETACHMENT H. M.’s. POONA IRREGULAR HORSE.
DHULIA.—In Medical Charge of Assistant Surgeon G. BAINBRIDGE; Strength 151.
The number of treated was 62, of whom 61 were newly admitted. There were no deaths
in hospital. The number of discharged was 51, viz., 46 to duty, and 5 on sick leave. Eleven
men remained in hospital at the end of the year.
The sickness has been less than in any of the previous three years, and only slightly
greater than that of 1868, when there were only 55 cases in hospital. The reduction was in
the number of fever patients, of whom there were only 29 admitted.
Ague.—Some of the cases of ague from the outposts were rather severe and occasionally
complicated with enlargement of the spleen and slight bronchitic affections; but, I am happy
to record, that, owing chiefly (as it appears to me) to the men's good constitutions, they all
recovered satisfactorily. Three men who suffered from this disease were sent on sick leave
when convalescent.
I have nothing particular or new to record in the way of the systems or treatment of
fever. I have as usual trusted chiefly to quinine, aided by stimulants, purgatives, emetics,
and salines. These remedies have in men of this detachment worked with efficacy. I have
not found it necessary or advisable to use quinine hypodermically; the irritation caused by
the syringe, and the delay in introducing the medicine, are objections to the regular adoption
of this method, and patients prefer to take it by the mouth.
Scalp Wound.—A sowar fell from his horse in April and sustained a slight wound of the
scalp. It did not appear at the time that the periosteum was injured, but two small pieces of
bone subsequently exfoliated. There were no bad symptoms, and the man was sent on a
month's sick leave in July.
Cholera .—A moderately severe case of cholera occured in August, but recovered quickly
under the use of calomel and the stimulant mixture described in Aitkin's " medicine," together
with tincture cantharidis.
Conjunctivitis
.—In October a very bad case of double ophthalmia was admitted, which
afterwards became complicated with ulceration of both corneæ and severe chemosis. The
man was treated chiefly by leeches, strong nitrate of silver drops, quinine, and opium, and ap-
plication of belladonna to the eyelids. He was almost totally blind for three or four days, but
made an excellent recovery and regained sight completely with clear corneæ.
Wound of the Back, &c .—Sowar Russool Mahomed, who was attacked at Shanda outpost
on the 3rd October by one of his comrades, who stabbed him in the right arm and back with a
sword, and who had been treated by the hospital assistant at the place until sufficiently
recovered to send in here, was admitted on the 29th October. The wound in the right fore-
arm had healed, that in the back was fast closing up, a sinus two inches deep only remaining.
The sword had evidently been used whilst the wounded man was lying in a semiprone
position, at point No. 3 from the hip, and had entered the back immediately to the left of the
spine, about two-and-a-half inches above the level of the crest of the ilium. From this point,
it penetrated upwards and outwards, and had made its exit just below the tenth left rib, in a
direct line between the axillæ and iliac spine; the superior wound, which is completely healed,
seems to have been small as if only the point of the sword had penetrated it. The inferior
orifice or wound entrance was still open as above stated. There is no discharge from it worth
speaking of, and no tendency to inflammation. The kidney would appear to have escaped