32
In Eastern Command with its slight decrease, the Presidency and. Assam
District had the highest rate with Calcutta as the plague spot of the district..
Special disciplinary measures which were introduced in the mid-year appear
to have had an appreciable effect in reducing infections.
In Western Ind. District the increase was principally in Syphilis and Soft
sore with a real fall in the incidence of Gonorrhœa. The comment is made
“ Has the ready availability of the Sulphonamide Group of drugs in chemists
shops anything to do with this ? " It had been stated that the British batta-
lion now in Quetta, when recently in Tientsin were known to have been buying
this drug there. In Quetta two small fulminant outbreaks were traced to one
brothel in a street which is entirely devoted to the same. In Karachi there
was an increase of cases from 29 to 70 of Syphilis;45 of these came from.
Quetta.
In Southern Command there was a sharp rise from 14 . 70 per 1,000 to 50.28
per 1,000, a rise which was shared by all districts in the Command. The worst
stations were Malappuram, Bombay, Madras and Secunderabad.
The worst stations for all India with their ratios per 1,000 were :
Calcutta (Alipore) .
.
.
108.0
Karachi .
.
.
.
.
62.2
Bombay (Colaba) .
.
.
95.1
Agra
.
.
.
.
.
56.2
Madras .
.
.
.
90.3
Jubbulpore .
.
.
.
55.9
Trimulgherry (Secunderabad) .
75.5
Luchncv.
.
.
.
.
54.4
Ferozepore
.
.
.
72.6
Cawnpore
.
.
.
.
53. 5
Hyderabad (Sind) .
.
.
67.2
Quetta
Lahore .
.
.
.
.
..
.
.
.
52.1
51 .6
Although the group as a whole appears to be on the increase in the All India
fig ure and cannot be viewed with equanimity, yet it must not be forgotten
that we have here in India a large body of men made fighting fit, young, healthy
vigorous and susceptible who, up to the present year, have been serving abroad!
for 6 years and more at a stretch, away from their accustomed social contacts:
and amenities. It is little wonder that, temptations being what they are,
many men succumb. Even now this is less than 5 men in every hundred
over the course of the whole year, a figure which is remarkable for its small-
ness. From this it is not meant to infer that preventive measures should
not be encouraged, but that the risks are great and probabilities of infection
high.
Preventive measures are provided in Preventive Ablution Rooms in all
units, but inspection has shown that a vast improvement could be made in
many of these Preventive rooms and that the use of the rooms could be enor-
mously increased. For example in Northern Command it was shown from an
examination of the case cards that in 47% of cases Ablution rooms were not
used at all and in 24% they were only used. 24 hours after exposure. Or in
other words in 71% of infections had not really been used at all. This is a
matter to which attention is being directed.
As regards treatment the use of the Sulphonamid.e group of drugs has been
stabilised and extendea. Much has been written in the journals on the efficacy
of the treatment, but from the military patients point of view the Sulphonamide
group has changed the whole outlook of the disease, both for the patient and the
doctor. Hospitalization has been markedly reduced and in one large area,
Lahore, there had been no cases of relapse in nine months.