32
SKETCH OF THE MEDICAL HISTORY OF THE NATIVE ARMY OF BOMBAY.
tive of its tonic invigorating influence. The greater degree of cold at present experienced is
trying to natives who have not the means of counteracting by warm clothes the effects of cold,
and thus enabling the system to adapt itself to extremes of temperatures ; colds and pulmonary
affections and fevers are apt to be thus caused. Amongst the sowars, at present a few suffer
from the slighter effects of cold, coryza, and cough ; and amongst the camp followers, syces, &c.,
such affections I find are not only much more common, but they are more severe. Again
amongst the villagers there are even greater numbers suffering directly from cold. Amongst
the more severe forms of pulmonary disease, it usually happens, that in the beginning of cold
weather or other sudden change of temperature, the first indication of the disease presents
itself, patients suffering from phthisis pulmonalis give out that the cold season called forth, or
gave expression to the disease which had been for sometime previously lying dormant.
In the cold season too, fevers are more common, the attack is reinduced in such cases by
cold, although it cannot be excited "de novo" by such means. Fevers in Seroor are much more
common in the cold season (beginning in October and terminating in March) then they are
in the hot and rainy season combined. This is so exactly the opposite of what is usually experi
-enced in Indian cantonments that it should be noticed. This immunity from malaria and fever
intermittent is solely due to the excellent site which the cantonment occupies, the nature of the
ground or soil, and the efficient natural drainage which the site secures for it. Other diseases
too of malarious origin are uncommon—dysentery may be specified as an illustration, only one
case of which I have treated in the Poona Horse Hospital during the past year, and there is
reason to doubt whether this single case was contracted in Seroor and could therefore be with
fairness debited to the local influence of climate. Amongst men who have suffered much
from intermittent fever anything which tends to disturb the normal tension of the system
will reinduce attacks óf the disease, and the altered electric condition of the atmosphere will
thus predispose to the disease, and the effect of damp will be in many instances at this
season the proximate cause of an attack. It will be remembered that a wing of the Poona
Horse served in Upper Sind in 1868; these men suffered very much from intermittent fever
in Sind and after their return to Seroor in 1869. Amongst these, mild attacks of intermittent
fever were not unfrequent during the past rainy season. In the case too of a European Officer
who contracted a severe form of tertian intermittent fever, when on duty in Sind, there was a
proclivity to attacks of fever in the rains, which did not exist at other seasons of the year.
During the rainy season the climate is cool and pleasant, and light clothes must be laid aside
for warm clothing, which is necessary for the comfort and health of the individual. Driving
rain-clouds from the S. W., sometimes for hours, completely intercept the sun's rays, and
dense mists often hover over us for prolonged periods ; under such circumstances, clothing and
bedding become damp at this season, and unless dried well, produce the ordinary train of
effects which the imprudent exposure to cold and damp entails so frequently on individuals.
Towards the end of the rains very heavy dews are deposited in the night, which, reducing the
temperature very sensibly, render the nights pleasantly cold.
During the hot season, the sun is potent to about the same degree as obtains in the
Deccan highlands. At this season prolonged exposure in the sun's rays after 10 A.M. becomes
unpleasant, and should induce disease—ephemeral fever, sunstroke, and diarrhœa; but during
the past year, I have not treated a case of sunstroke. Under cover of a good house, doors and
windows closed at 8 A.M., the temperature indoors seldom exceeds 88º. This temperature in
-doors is neither oppressive nor unpleasant, and as a cool moist sea breeze almost invariably
sets in about 10 P.M., the enervating debilitating influence of the hot season is much less ex
-perienced in Seroor, than it is in many other military stations, where the atmosphere is stagnant
and oppressive, or the hot wind continues until midnight and effectually prevents refreshing sleep.
There is no endemic cause of disease in operation in Seroor, and that the climate is in general
salubrious may be inferred from the fact, that the wing which arrived in Seroor from Sind
so prostrated and cachectic from the effects of fever intermittent, are much stronger and suffer
less from fever ; attacks are not only less frequent but of a milder type. The same renovating
influence of Seroor climate is often also witnessed in the case of men who have been on out
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