143
NORTHERN DIVISION OF THE ARMY.
but rallied under the administration of stimulants and stimulating expectorants. Ammonia
and arrack were freely given.
On the 3rd of February the right half battalion was detached to Augur.
The sickness and mortality in the 25th Regiment at Mehidpoor during the year were
both considerable, and the number of admissions into hospital, particularly from ague, very high.
The average strength at head-quarters amounted to 311 ; the total number of admissions into
hospital 913 ; the daily average of sick 23 . 075 ; the percentage of admissions to strength 292.60 ;
the percentage of treated to strength 300, of deaths to treated 0 . 64, and of deaths to strength
1.93. The high rate of mortality was caused by a slight outbreak of cholera in the canton-
ment during the month of May, June, and July.
Ague has been the prevailing disease during the year, and contributed 516 to the total
number of admissions into hospital. The disease occurred chiefly in the rains, and the number
of admissions from it increased monthly from thirty-four in July to thirty-five in August,
seventy-four in September and to one hundred and twenty-one in October. In the month of
November there was a great decrease in the number of ague cases, and only twenty-six men
were admitted into hospital for that disease. In August the ague cases were almost all com-
plicated with diarrhœa or chest affections. These complications were plainly traceable to the
damp state of the lines at the time, which owing to a rainfall of over seventeen inches was
worse than usual. No death occurred in hospital from malarial fever, but eight men were
granted sick leave for it.
The prevalence of malarial fever amongst the troops hitherto stationed at Mehidpoor
has been so often reported on, and the local causes of malaria so fully described by Dr. Bur-
rows in his report for 1870, that I have only little to add on the subject. During the rains
of 1872, I, however, considered the increase of ague in September and October to a certain
extent due to the great amount of rank vegetation which sprung up around the native town
of Mehidpoor and along the banks of the river and nullah. The portion of the cantonment
on which the lines are situated is bounded on the west by the Seepra river, and on the north-
east and partly on the south by a nullah that opens into this. The bed of the river is very
little lower than this nullah which drains camp and some of the surrounding country, and the
consequence is, that after a heavy fall of rain when the former rises it flows into the latter, and
swamps a portion of the country along the banks. When the river falls and the water flows
off, a certain amount of deposit is left behind, which in drying gives out malaria and furnishes
a hotbed for the growth of rank vegetation. Between cantonment and the native town, and
around the latter particularly, rank vegetation certainly flourished during the past monsoon.
The faulty position of camp as regards drainage, and the wretched condition and damp
state of the lines in the rains have been several times reported on as a source of malaria. The
nature of the soil which causes it to retain moisture for a long time, and the presence of a
certain amount of jungle, and in the monsoon swampy ground to the south and south-west of
the camp have also been brought to notice.
Cholera, which was epidemic in the town of Mehidpoor and in several towns along the
road from Khundwa, and which prevailed amongst the workmen on the Indore State Railway
and the troops at Mhow, appeared in cantonment in May. During the months of May, June,
and July, nine cases of cholera occurred within cantonment limits, and of these five proved
fatal and four recovered ; six of the patients admitted were sepoys, and of these four died, and
the remaining three were followers, two of whom recovered. The prevalence of cholera in the
town, which is quite close to camp, accounts for its occurrence in the latter. The usual precau-
tions recommended to prevent the spread of the disease were taken and sentries placed so as
to cut off all communication with the native town. In the town the disease was very pre-
valent and 249 cases were registered, 112 of which proved fatal ; but, fortunately, only a few
cases occurred amongst the troops. Calomel in ten grain doses, repeated every hour until the
evacuations changed colour, and an aromatic stimulant mixture every half an hour, with the
external application of heat and friction, was the treatment employed. Suppression of urine
when it continued being met by the remedies recommended for that complication. Two cir-
cumstances were noticed in connection with these cases which are perhaps worth stating, and
they are the large amount of calomel a patient can take without being salivated, and the great
rise in temperature which occurred immediately after death.
Seventy cases of rheumatism were treated, and of these sixty-eight were chronic, five
muscular, and two acute. The amount of admissions from chronic rheumatism is no criterion
of the number of men attacked, as a few (who have since been pensioned) were admitted
several times during the year.
Bowel complaints furnished sixty-two cases of admissions into hospital ; and of these
twenty were for dysentery, twenty-five for diarrhœa, and seventeen for colic. The diarrhœa
and dysentery I am inclined to attribute to cold and malaria : ipecacuanha, lead, opium;
gallic acid, and quinine, were medicines chiefly used in the treatment of dysentery.