ix
believe there is a very intimate connexion between certain meteorological
phenomena and the outbreak of cholera in an epidemic form, as well as of
malarious fevers, I am glad to see all the large military cantonments being
supplied with a complete set of instruments, with which correct and valuable
observations are made by a properly qualified observer.
27. Notwithstanding the widening and deepening of the Aboo Nullah at
Meerut, the subsoil water of that station is said to have risen steadily during
the past year. The influence, if any, which the rise of the subsoil water may
have exerted on the increase or decline of malarious fevers, is not very con-
vincingly proved, nor has it been incontrovertibly shown that those diseases,
which now-a-days are generally attributed to a damp subsoil, have become
strikingly more prevalent.
The widening
and deepening
of the Aboo
Nullah at
Meerut.
28. The cultivation and planting of trees in cantonments and regimental
lines seem to be very properly increasing in favor. It is now understood that
trees (planted with certain precautions), instead of proving causes of sickness,
will on the contrary act most beneficially by preserving the purity and increas-
ing the moisture of the atmosphere, as well as by protecting us from extremes
of temperature, likewise affording a grateful shade by their foliage at those
seasons when shade is most required and most highly appreciated.
29. Very little requires to be said regarding the huts or barracks in which
the sepoys were located. The barracks are generally reported on as having been
well ventilated and not overcrowded, and they will for many reasons most
probably prove to be the buildings best suited for the requirements of the
unmarried soldiers of the native army. During the past year, eight new
barracks were built in the native infantry lines at Bareilly, and on a plan
uniform with those previously existing. Each man in these barracks has now
50 square feet of superficial room, and 480 cubic feet of breathing space. At
Dehra, also, twenty new barracks (each one for two families) were completed
for the married men of the 2nd Goorkhas; and it is reported that they are
well raised, and that in them the ventilation, breathing space, and superficial
r o o m a r e a l l t h a t c a n b e d e s i r e d .
30. A good many medical officers consider the ventilation of the regi-
mental huts to have been defective; but taking their construction into account,
I am not prepared to admit that it has been so in all stations. That the huts
are small, low, badly lighted, and, according to our ideas, afford but indifferent
accommodation for their inmates, cannot be doubted, but from the fact of their
being roofed (in some stations) with a single layer of tiles, through the inter-
stices of which there must always be a free circulation of air; and besides, being
either without doors or else provided with very badly fitting ones, it does not
appear probable that there has been a deficiency of ventilation in them, nor
do the reports bring forward any evidence sufficiently conclusive, from which
the opinion can be formed that sickness has been caused through defective
ventilation. I find that cooking was in some cases carried on inside the huts
or barracks, and that the floors of the huts of a regiment serving in Peshawar
were dug out below the level of the surrounding ground, in order, it is said,
to allow of the men standing upright in them. It may be almost unnecessary
to remark that such proceedings are objectionable.
31. I have long been of opinion that the drainage (surface and subsoil)
of many military cantonments is defective, and that it has been one, if not
the principal, of the causes on which outbreaks of cholera and of malarious
fever were dependent. It would take up too much valuable space, and would
extend this report much beyond its proper limits, if I attempted to explain
the reasons from which I have arrived at the above conclusions; but to settle
the question definitely, to what extent defective surface and subsoil drainage
may be considered as the causes of cholera and of malarious fevers, I should
like to see any one station of known unhealthiness thoroughly drained; the
result might be worth the outlay. That the drainage of a good number of
regimental lines was not efficient, there is evidence in the sanitary reports;
thus, in the lines of the 10th Regiment, Bengal Infantry, at Barrackpore, it is
reported that, at certain seasons, the drains serve as inlets for the river water
and that from tanks. They thus become reservoirs for the surface filth of
the station, and give off most offensive odours when drying up. Of the Sappers
3
Cultivation
and planting
of trees.
Barracks and
huts.
Ventilation
of huts
considered
defective.
Drainage.