POONA DIVISION OF THE ARMY.
The health of the battalion has improved since last report.
The average strength exclusive of 7 European Officers numbered 663 men.
There were 644 admissions registered during the year with a daily sick average of 12.0 ;
the percentage of treated to strength was 98.7 ; of treated, and deaths to strength was 0.3.
Of the deaths recorded, one was suicidal (cut-throat), the other and only casualty in hospital.
was the result of acute bronchitis; these returns contrast not unfavorably with those of the
previous year.
Ague was the most prevalent disease under treatment. With a view to economise the
supply of quinine in consequence of the increase of fever cases shortly after the Regiment reached
Baroda, beberiæ sulphas, liquid arsenicalis, chiretta and acid, &c., were substituted, but with
unsatisfactory results. The native soldier has great faith in the antiperiodic virtues of quinine,
and is, I have reason to know, dissatisfied in attacks of ague, with the exhibition of any other
drug.
Stimulants (spirituous) in fever cases complicated with bronchitis were freely given
and always with good effect; in the use of the hydrate of chloral as au anodyne and hypnotic
in rheumatism, acute and chronic, bronchitis, asthma, &c., we possess an agent superior in many
respects to opium itself.
Vaccination is carried on with success ; 39 operations were performed with satisfactory
results, the number of unprotected is only 3 ; no cases of small-pox have occurred in the
Regiment.
Eleven recruits joined during the year and sixteen men were invalided ; fifteen sepoys
proceeded on sick certificate to their own country, one of these a case of true leprosy was, on
his return from leave, discharged with gratuity ; a sepoy with chronic rheumatism after being
in hospital 182 days, was similarly discharged.
Head Quarters and one Wing of H .M.'s 2nd Grenadier Regiment A. I.
Sattara.—In Medical charge of Surgeon F. H. PLUMPTRE, Strength 279.
The report will be destitute of anything worthy of remark in connection with the health.
of the comparatively small number of the men who have been under my charge, an average
of only 279, during the past year. As far as all local circumstances are concerned, the condi
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tions have been precisely the same as those reported for the year preceding ; the men have occu
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pied the same temporary lines hastily put together on the conclusion of the Abyssinian. campaign,
and which have been repeatedly reported on as unfit for anything but temporary occupation.
In the beginning of the past year the whole of the buildings had fallen into so bad a condition,
that it would have been impossible for the troops to have remained another rainy season. A
grant of money was obtained, and such portions of the lines as were required for the reduced
strength of the Regiment were so far repaired as to make them tenantable for a few months
more; but at the time the Regiment left Sattara they have again fallen into so bad a condition,
that, as I stated in my sanitary report of the station, I think it very questionable whether
on the arrival of the 11th Regiment N. I. at Sattara this month, there will be any roof left on
the hospital. As far as situation is concerned, it would be difficult to select a better spot for
the construction of lines than the present ones, and it would have been wise economy, if
permanent lines had been erected immediately it was decided to regard Sattara once more
as a station for a Native Infantry Regiment.
It is, however, an evidence of the salubrity of Sattara to be able to report, that in spite of
the manifest disadvantages of occupying such unsuitable buildings, the health of the Regiment
continued so good ; the admissions were as usual chiefly under the head of malarial fevers,
and of these some assumed a serious form of the remittent type, and with many there was a dis
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position to relapses at short intervals after discharge from hospital. For this class of cases I.
10 s