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5
NORTHERN AND MHOW DIVISIONS OF THE ARMY.
During the rains, however, the houses are very damp, as the black soil on which they are
built retains the moisture.
The wells from which the men draw their drinking water are to the north of the lines
on the slope between them and the latrines. Though the water has been pronounced by the
Chemical Analyser to Government "suspicious on the ground of sewage contamination," no
cases of disease fairly attributed to the use of bad drinking water have occurred among the
men or their families.
The hospital is situated to the east of the lines, and is in the same bomb-proof building as
the hospital of the 3rd Regiment N. I; the ventilation is by no means perfect, there being
no sufficient outlet for the heated air—during the cold weather chilling draughts permeate the
building. Were a portion of each door cut away and a screen fitted so as to direct the fresh air
at first upwards, the doors could be shut at night and the patients saved from the danger and
discomfort of lying in a draught without materially interfering with the existing ventilation.
There is no dead-house belonging to either of the hospitals, and as a consequence all post
mortem examinations have to be performed in the verandah almost in presence of the patients.
The Regimental latrines (on the dry system) are good, sufficient, and well looked after;
the hospital latrine however has only three seats, which, when there is much sickness, are
insufficient.
The lines and Regimental bazaar are always kept very clean.
The Regiment during the past year has been quite free from epidemic disease; the only
maladies which filled the hospital were of malarial origin. Quinine was the remedial agent
principally employed, but liquor arsenicalis in half dram doses was frequently exhibited with
satisfactory results.
In January I tried to cure two cases of obstinate intermittent fever which had resisted the
action of antiperiodics given in the usual way, by the subcutaneous injection of quinine.
The results were eminently unsatisfactory; the fever recurred as usual and small sloughs
formed round the points where the nozzle of the syringe had been inserted. In June I re
-peated the experiment, and succeeded in preventing the recurrence of the fever for a few days,
but sloughs formed. Having heard that the method had been more successful in other hands,
I determined to give it a more extended trial, and in August selected 8 cases for the experi
-ment. All had been frequently admitted during the year for ague, and since their last admis
-sions, bad suffered many recurrences of the fever. A solution was prepared containing 3 grains
of sulphate of quinine, 3 minims of dilute sulphuric acid to the half dram of water. This pre
-paration was carefully filtered and injected under the skin of the arm a short time before the
recurrence of the attack of ague was expected. Some of the cases were operated on by
myself, others by the hospital assistants; in all the fever was uninfluenced and sloughs formed
at the seat of puncture. The symptoms of commencing sloughing, viz., great pain, and a
black stain at the point of entrance of the syringe, being observed on the day after the opera
-tion, the injection was of course not repeated. Thinking that the sulphuric acid might possi
-bly be alone to blame for the accident, I tried acetic acid as the solvent for the quinine. The
solution was made and filtered as above, the quantity of acid being 5 minims instead of 3
to the half dram of water, a smaller quantity not being sufficient to hold the quinine in
solution. Three cases were treated with the preparation, one man having 6 grains injected at
two different points. In two cases the course of the fever was uninfluenced and sloughs
formed, the patient who had been injected in two places having two sloughs. The third case
after two slight paroxysms of tertian fever recovered, and no sloughs formed. It should be
noted, however, that the patient in this case was a healthy man, who had only been once treated
for fever during the year; that his fever which had been of a quotidian type on his admission,
had passed into tertian before the injection was used, and that in all he had only suffered from
eight paroxysms when quinine was hypodermically exhibited. This same man who was cured
1 7 s