20
SKETCH OF THE MEDICAL HISTORY OF THE NATIVE ARMY OF BOMBAY.
Cholera having made its appearance in the town the troops were not allowed to visit
it except on duty, and arrangements were made for the early treatment of any cases
of diarrhœa that might occur in the bazaar and its neighbourhood. An hospital assistant
was specially detailed for house to house visitation of all doubtful cases of diarrhœa as soon as
reported, and a supply of medicine was furnished to the mamlutdar in the town for the use
of the inhabitants, another supply was lodged at the kotwalee for the residents of the sudder
bazaar, and cleansing measures were adopted in the dwellings of those attacked. The floors
and walls of the houses were covered with fresh mud coating, fumigated, and limewashed,
and the body clothes of those who died were burnt, and the whole of the other clothing was
placed in boiling water. The event of the out-break being simultaneous with the arrival of
pilgrims from a shrine where the disease bad been raging, was remarkable, but may possibly
have been a coincidence ; as it would be difficult to say to what extent communication had taken
place between the pilgrims and those first attacked, especially when public municipal latrines
were resorted to by the inhabitants, and the first casualties had occurred before the
existence of the disease was known in cantonment.
In the past year there were 587 cases admitted, 12 pensioned, 2 proceeded on sick leave,
and 6 died in hospital. The daily average sickness amounted to 14.9; the diseases presented
no peculiarity of character that has not been detailed at length in former reports. Upwards
of one-half the admissions were from fever, of which 200 were of intermittent, and 173 of
ephemeral fever. The type was generally amenable to treatment, and was rarely complicated
with splenic enlargement and cachexy. Such instances were met with in the numerous out
-patients that were seen in the course of the year, but in these cases the splenic cachexy had
been acquired in Berar or in the Khandeish districts. In the cold weather the fever was
complicated with more or less clearly marked thoracic affections, and in the rains with a ten
-dency to bowel-complaint. In February same instances were associated with scorbutic taint
in men that had returned from furlough to Hindoostan, and in October, several cases of
a scorbutic diathesis presented themselves in men who had been on detachment duty
at Tanna, where the men evidently deteriorate in condition after a year's residence.
It is advisable, therefore, when the interests of the public service admit of it, that the
wing stationed there should not be longer absent from regimental head quarters than a
year, both as regards military training and general health. The wing that returned in
October had lost a good deal of the smart well set up look that it had acquired when
here, after attendance at the gymnasium and running drill. This deterioration of condition
gradually wears off after four or five months' residence here, and is ascribed to the climate of
Tanna, and to the exposure that the men necessarily undergo there in the rains while sentry
on jail guard, when they have to continue on the open ground without any shelter in the
heaviest rains, and afterwards remain in their wet clothes for twenty-four hours. This has been
somewhat lessened lately by the issue of a water-proof covering to sentries on open unshelter
-ed beats. Under the head of fever one death occurred very suddenly and was found to have
been from fatty degeneration of the heart; the next on the list is cholera, of which
there was only one case in a weekly recruit, which terminated fatally in fifteen hours; he
had been in hospital for general debility previously, and was seized with the malady when
on the sick list, and could therefore hardly have had intercourse with those affected, and
had used the same description of food and water as the other patients ; its origin, moreover,
could not be connected with any local sanitary defect. After this is rheumatism of which
there were 19 cases of a sub-acute or chronic character, which were associated in several cases
with scorbutic diathesis ; syphilis has been rare and had consisted of 3 primary and 3 of
secondary syphilis. The exemption from this disease is easily accounted for by about 89 per
cent. of the men being married, and about 50 per cent. having their families living with
them. Two of the cases of constitutional disease arose from concealment of the primary.
The diet of the married men and families is scarcely equal to the above estimate, as it is
necessarily somewhat varied in quantity and quality according to their respective circum-