Ventilation of
the hospital.
Hospital
drainage.
64
MEDICAL AND SANITARY REPORT OF THE NATIVE ARMY OF MADRAS.
Epidemic
diseases.
Hospital
water-supply.
others, desirous of exhibiting their unfitness for further service before the General Officer as one
way of being invalided, adopt the same course. Men frequently report sick after unavoidable
night duty. The average number of nights in bed to one on duty has been 3.10. Looking to the
admission of 78 per cent. of strength into hospital during the year, it may safely be said that the
duty does exercise an injurious influence on health, but it is not the duty alone, as insufficient
nourishment, wretched accommodation, bad drainage of the lines, &c., all tend in the same direc--
tion.
Epidemic diseases. —Forty per cent. of the admissions into hospital during the year were cases
of fever ; dysentery and diarrhœa were comparatively rare ; cholera attacked other parts of Banga
-lore during the last quarter of the year, but the east hutting lines escaped. The fevers and bowel-
complaints were mild and amenable to treatment, and there were no deaths in hospital from these
or any other diseases. 37 children and 15 adults died in the lines, as will be fully described in the
medical report. All the defects enumerated in the question exist, and are brought to notice in
periodical reports, and the Deputy Surgeon-General of the division has recommended "that the
lines be swept away, the site itself abandoned, and new lines built elsewhere."
Ventilation of the hospital. —Satisfactory, as the building has doors, windows, four dormer and
three roof ventilators.
Hospital drainage. — G ood water from the bath-room runs out into a receptacle outside the
building, but a part of the main and special wards adjacent to the bath-room is always damp.
Coal-tar is used in the latrine, and the dry-earth system is efficiently carried out. Several minor
defects were brought to notice during the year and remedied.
Hospital water-supply. —Sufficient.
General
conclusions.
Lines.
General conclusions. —The regiment was free from epidemic disease. The percentage of
admissions (488) to strength (621) was 78.5 per cent., against 64.2 and 72.8 in 1874 and 1873.
The average daily sick was 19.9. There were no deaths in the regimental hospital. The percent-
age of men invalided and pensioned (29) to strength was 4.6.
Deputy Surgeon-General George Smith, M.D., inspected this corps on the 2nd
November 1875, and reports as follows :—
Lines. —The lines look clean ; the huts are, as a rule, poor and not in good repair ; the internal
arrangements as regards latrine and lavatory are primitive, and not, as a rule, satisfactory. There
are no V-shaped stone drains, the drainage being effected by ditches dug in the soil and of
varying size, in which fluids flow with difficulty and black mud accumulates readily. Some of these
drains, owing to the rains, are irregularly scooped out, and so furnish pools for the contents many
of which were this morning offensive. The drains run due north and end in the municipal box-
drain at the south side of the road separating the lines from the native bazaar. This box-drain,
like the corresponding one from the west which it joins, is large and is kept clean with great
difficulty. The lines as a whole exhibit all those defects which sanitary science condemns, and
which will only be got rid of when Government hut their sepoys as they house their soldiers in
erections constructed on proper principles. There is a lack of dust-bins in the lines, the rugged
ditch drains acting too frequently as substitutes. The huts are in better repair than they were
last year and the lines look cleaner, but in the huts themselves there is better improvement visible,
and this is a matter of importance, inasmuch as from the absence of regimental latrines all voidances
are made in the huts.
Sanitary
condition.
Conservancy
of the neigh
- b o u r h o o d .
Hospital.
Principal
diseases.
Sanitary condition. —A short distance north of the barrack is the quarter-guard latrine erected
in a contracted space badly ventilated, badly constructed, and badly conserved. The odour this
morning was very objectionable, and the floor was soaked with water and urine. The plan of
this latrine corresponds with that of the latrine of the quarter-guard of the 36th N.I., and should
at once be altered into a proper dry-earth latrine on the short-trough system. The conservancy
of these two latrines, as far as my experience goes, is generally neglected.
Conservancy of the neighbourhood. —The neighbourhood of the lines, especially that portion lying
to the north and forming part of the cantonment bazaar, stands in need of a somewhat more stringent
conservancy. The large drains this morning were foul, and the purlieus of the native bazaar were
far from clean, drainage being in many places defective. It is difficult to suggest a remedy where
all the habits and practices of the people run counter to cleanliness and the most common laws of
sanitation. It will take another generation to teach them what dirt is.
Hospital. — The hospital is clean and well conserved, the lavatory is sufficient but, there is some
soakage into the water ; the latrine requires only buckets to make it complete ; the cook-room
stands in need of slight repairs.
Pr i nc i pa l di s e a s e s . — S i n c e l a s t i n s p e c t i o n ( 2 4 t h D e c e m b e r 1 8 7 4 ) t h e r e h a v e b e e n 3 7 2 a d m i s s i o n s
into hospital, and 33 invalided ; there have been no deaths. Since the 1st of January last there
have been 38 deaths among the families and followers, viz., males 2, women 8, and children 28. Of
the 28 children, 13 were stillborn, 11 died from fever, and 4 from "other causes." Ninety-six births
were : registered during the same period ; the mortality therefore equals one-third of all born.