REPORT ON THE WORK CARRIED OUT IN THE MICRO-BIOLOGICAL
SECTION OF THE KING INSTITUTE OF PREVENTIVE MEDICINE,
GUINDY, FOR THE YEAR 1912.
There was but little change in the staff of the section this year.
Captain W. S. Patton, I.M.S., was in charge of the Institute as Acting Director
from the 1st till the 14th January. Dr. F. M. Gibson re-assumed charge of the
Office of Director on the 15th of January and remained in charge during the year.
Instead of reverting to his substantive appointment of Assistant Director,
Captain Patton was posted to do special work on the investigation of Kala Azar.
For the time being he ceased to be on the staff.
Captain F. W. Cragg, I.M.S., acted as Assistant Director, sub.pro tem ., through
-out the year.
A very large amount of work was carried out in the section.
Captain Cragg continued his entomological researches, studying especially the
morphology and mechanism of the mouth apparatus in blood-sucking flies, the nature
of the digestive process in blood-feeders, and the life histories and bionomics of the
dipterous fauna of the neighbourhood. His results cannot be given here, as from
their nature they do not lend themselves to abstraction, and would be incomplete
without the numerous original figures which accompany the text. They are published
in the scientific memoirs series by the officers of Medical and Sanitary Department
of the Government of India, Nos. 53, 54, 58 and 59, in other numbers of the
same series now in the press, and in the Journal of Indian Research. A book
embodying the work done by him in conjunction with Captain Patton is now in the
press.
At the instance of Lieut.-Colonel Elliot, I.M.S., Captain Cragg also prepared a
number of microscopic sections of the entire eye-ball showing the pathological
changes in eyes after the Indian operation of "couching" the lens for cataract.
The systematic examination of the water-supplies, actual and prospective, of the
Presidency was continued on the same lines as last year. There was a considerable
rise in the number of bacteriological examinations carried out, and a slight fall in
the number of chemical examinations. As in previous years these results are
printed in the form of appendices to this report. The results got with jail waters
forming Appendix III, Parts 1 and 2, and those got with municipal water-supplies
Appendix IV, Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.
There has been a considerable drop in the number of specimens sent for exami
-nation, the fall amounting to rather over 14 per cent. It would be a mistake
however to infer that this branch of the work has necessarily decreased. As a matter
of fact the fall has taken place in those classes of specimens requiring but little
work, and there have been large increases in specimens requiring elaborate testing,
e.g. , specimens for the highly elaborate Wassermann test have increased from 11
to 481; Bacteriological analysis of water from 529 to 620; and specimens for
Spirochaeta from 7 to 55. Notable falls are seen under the headings, plague in
animals, in men and under blood for Widal's test. Table I is arranged to show the
nature of the material sent, the examination required, the result, positive or negative,
and the number of each kind.