Lines.
:Improve-
ments.
Cooking-
houses.
Ventilation.
Drainage.
Conservancy
and latrines.
Water-supply.
14
MEDICAL AND SANITARY REPORT OF THE NATIVE ARMY OF BENGAL.
beginning of October hot, muggy days, followed by cold heavy dews at night,
cause a good deal of colic. dysentery and diarrhœa amon g the men.
The lines are reported to be well shaded by trees, and to afford sufficient
accommodation.
On arrival of the regiment, they were re-thatched and thoroughly done up, and have been
kept since in first rate order. Formerly, it was the custom at Bhagalpur for the sepoys to
cook inside their huts. This was considered on several grounds a defective arrangement, not
only from a sanitary point of view (the respiration of air impregnated with carbonic acid),
but also the great danger of accidental fires, owing to the combustible nature of the material
composing the thatch. Early in the year, therefore, cooking sheds with tiled roofs were built
at the end of each company section of huts, and no cooking of any description is permitted
within the huts.
The ventilation of the houses has been improved by opening doors in the
partition walls and large holes near the roof. The drainage (surface) is
satisfactory.
VII. Conservancy and latrines.— For hospital patients there is a puckka latrine, in which
the dry-earth system is in force; for the men the trench system. The trenches are dug in
the old ditch of the fort, and are in a lower level than any of the surrounding country. The
contamination of the water of the neighbouring village, that was once insisted on as a reason
why the trench system should not be established here, is visionary. The site is a most
suitable one, except in the rainy season, when it was found necessary, on account of the dampness,
to remove the screens to a chosen site on the plateau of the fort. The temporary removal
was attended with no had results.
VIII. Water-supply .— The water-supply of the cantonment is from wells, of which there
are altogether 13, some of very great depth. The two principal ones, that near the hospital,
and. another near the quarter-guard, were recently analysed. The hospital well was found to
be not of good quality ; but the other is a good and drinkable water. It occupies a convenient
and central position, and has been covered over and set apart for drinking and cooking pur-
poses, the others only being used for washing and bathing purposes.
Diet.
Underfeeding.
Scurvy.
Punishment
enforced.
Diet at Dum-
ka.
IX. Diet : Underfeeding.—Wi t h
r e f e r e n c e t o t h e s u b j e c t o f d i e t , i n t h e a n n u a l r e p o r t o f
this regiment for last year (1876), I stated it to be my bleief that underfeeding did not prevail
among the men to any appreciable extent. My experience of the regiment at that time was that
obtained on a long march of nearly three months' duration. Now, after a year's experience
in cantonments, I must modify my former opinion, and state that improper feeding,
and to a certain extent underfeeding, is a lamentable and undoubted fact among certain classes
of the regiment. The majority of the men being up-country men, their more vigorous
organisations require a more liberal and sustaining diet than their Bengali neighbours here to
preserve them in good health and vigour, and that the latter can be maintained at this station
if stinting and miserly habits are not practised, our Sikh Company furnishes a good example.
The articles of food to which the men were accustomed up-country are easily obtainable,
and although at enhanced prices, Government allows reasonable compensation for dearness of
provisions. Moreover, to ensure the atta supplied being of good quality, the regimental
authorities arrange for the purchase of wheat which is ground at the Central Jail of this
station, and then supplied to the regimental bunniahs. Every facility is, therefore, afforded
to the sepoy to provide for himself the requisite supply of nutritious elements ; but, not-
withstanding, it is a lamentable fact that, notably with Jats and low caste Hindus, the
cravings of the stomach are as nothing compared to the craving for the rupee, and the chance
of saving their compensation by living upon rice and other cheap articles of Bengali diet,
is a temptation which they seem unable to resist.
Scurvy.—My
attention was first directed specially to this by noticing some men of E
Company (Jats) came into hospital with spongy gums and a few other scorbutic symptoms.
I at once communicated the fact to the commanding officer, with the request that an
enquiry should be instituted into the system of dieting of this company specially. The
recommendation was duly acted upon, when it was found from the bunniahs' books that,
native officers excepted, scarcely a man of the company purchased his legitimate allowance
of diet, which, on the contrary, was found to consist largely of rice. The men were warned
of the danger they were incurring, and by orders of the commanding officer the compensation
of this special company withheld for one month. Orders were also issued that the native officers
should be held in future personally responsible that each man of his company should provide
himself with not only a liberal diet, but also a proportion of vegetables, such as either potatoes,
cabbages, cauliflower, radishes, &c. I have hopes that now the chance of a recurrence of
scorbutic symptoms is reduced to a minimum. While on this subject, I may here state that
on referring to the annual and sanitary report of 1872, page 21, I find that scurvy manifested
itself in the 37th Regiment while stationed here.
Diet at Dumka.—The medical officer in charge of the Dumka detachment states that
vegetables, fish, milk, and flesh are not easily obtainable at that station. To this I partly
attributed the enfeebled and anæmic appearance of the men of A & D Companies on their
arrival at head-quarters from there on the 7th May. I have reason to believe, however, that
Dumka is not an unfavorable station for the location of troops, and must therefore attribute
the condition of those two particular companies to a hot weather march, with probably