Principal Causes of Sickness.
Principal Causes of Mortality.
Epidemics.
89
NORTHERN DIVISION OF THE ARMY.
after receipt of injury he was admitted into hospital with the entire thumb in a state of
tumefaction, suppuration, and smelling badly. Animal-charcoal poultices, sprinkled with
carbolic acid and water 1 to 20, were freely applied with marked benefit; 5 pieces of bone
were afterwards extracted, and the parts took on a healthy action. He was discharged cured
in 27 days. A sowar at a race meeting was knocked over by a pony at full gallop, sustained
concussion of the cerebro-spinal axis, and was picked up insensible. He was discharged
cured in 10 days. In May a sowar sustained Potts' fracture of left leg, his charger having
fallen on him. He was able to, walk in 2 months with the help of crutches. I operated,
without chloroform, on a sowar affected with 3 sebaceous tumours
of left side of cheek ; there was great difficulty in dissecting out
the membranes of the cysts. Patient made a rapid recovery. I excised a small tumour
from the side of the nose of a sowar ; there was considerable bleeding, which was overcome by
torsion. There were 8 men invalided at head-quarters.
12. A sowar many months in hospital, lame from contraction of the extensors of right
thigh, was found, after repeated examination, to be a malin
-
gerer and reported to the commandant. This man became
well in a few days on being told he would be tried by court-martial, and lose all pension
for simulating disease. He is a fine, well-built, muscular sowar in the prime of manhood,
only 37 years old. Desiring to leave the regiment, and being over 15 years' service, he
could only get his discharge by simulating disability. Early reform of the pension system
is urgently required ; for, so long as the present rules obtain, malingering will be practised.
13. 35 recruits were enlisted. The youths who seek enlistment are, as a rule,
slim, ill-nourished, poorly-developed men, with narrow chests
and deficient vital capacity. Only recently I rejected 8 out of
11; many of them were under 18 years old. All the highest authorities agree that no man
should be enlisted until he is 20 years old ; even then many processes in the vertebræ begin
to ossify. According to Parkes the epiphyses of the radius and ulna, the femur, tibia, and
fibula are all unjoined at 18 years of age, and are not entirely joined until the 25th year. As
the first qualification of a soldier is fortitude and endurance under fatigue and privation, only
hardy, muscular, well-developed men accustomed to exercise, above 20 years, should be
enlisted.
14. The average strength was 288.9, daily average sick 9.4, admissions 243, and 1 death.
The admissions were 39 less than in 1874, and 70 less than those in 1873. The mortality
was one-fourth that of last year.
Operations.
Malingering.
Recruiting.
15. The principal causes of disease were malaria, expo
- s u r e t o c o l d , f a l l s a n d k i c k s f r o m h o r s e s , a n d b a d l y - f i t t i n g s h o e s
causing abrasions.
16. Dysentery caused by exposure to cold in a weak old
Mussulman suffering from chronic rheumatism.
17. No epidemic in camp. Cholera raged in villages 20
miles from Deesa for many weeks ; mortality considerable.
18. There were 27 children successfully vaccinated.
19. The average height of the sowars is 5 feet 7½ inches, weight 130 lbs. 12 ozs., age 32½
years. The majority are fairly developed. The general health of the sowars was good ; as
compared with 1874 there was considerable diminution of sickness and mortality. The great
proximate cause of inefficiency was malarial fever, and next in importance were contu
- s i o n s a l w a y s i n c i d e n t t o m o u n t e d d u t y . 8 m e n i n D e e s a a n d 1 2 m e n i n w h o l e r e g i m e n t
were invalided ; the chief causes of invaliding were chronic rheumatism, constitutional
syphilis, long service, and effects of falls from horse-back. The great predisposing cause of
disease among sepoys is deficient nourishment, due to insufficient food of inferior quality.
Weak lads are enlisted who do not get sufficient to eat, having at first so many cuttings
from their pay for kit, &c. &c. As they grow older in the service, either from a desire to
save money or from having many mouths to feed, or too many claims on their generosity
and purse, they stint themselves of the necessaries of life. They take no succulent vege-
tables, and there is no variety in their food. Such men are of inferior physique, and not the
soldiers for the field, where endurance is required and privation must be undergone.
REMARKS BY DEPUTY SURGEON-GENERAL D. WYLLIE, M.D.
The return of sickness compares favourably with that for previous year alike in
decrease, in sickness, and in mortality.
B 66—w