The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-12-04 00:00:00

THE INDIAN SANITARY REPORT

The 18th Report on Sanitary Measures in India,
for the year 1884-5, which is prepared by Mr.
Ronson, of the India Office, has just been published,
and it contains, as usual, a vast amount of interesting
information relating to the health of the whole Indian
community, European and native. The arrangement
is appropriate, and based on a recognition of facts
which places in the front the health of the European
garrison of India. England is generally reproached
with the smallness of her army. En revanche we can
say that there is no other nation which would keep one-
third of its army permanently engaged on foreign ser-
vice. It necessarily follows that the health of our soldiers
in India, which absorbs three-fourths of our external
garrisons, is a matter of national importance. The
responsibility is not evaded. In India an Army Sani-
tary Commission has been appointed for the expregs
purpose of discharging this duty, and its aetion has
been marked by vigilance and discrimination. The
returns of sickness and mortality, which were excep-
tionally favourable in 1883-4, are less satisfactory for
the period under notice, except in the Presidency of
Madras, where the death-rate continued to decline
from 10.19 per thousand to 8.53. In Bengal
there was a fractional increase, but on the
other hand, the mortality of the troops in
Bombay rose from 10.50 to 1939.. The unsatis-
factory results were therefore confined to the I it-
named presidency, and they are explained as "chiefly
due to the high cholera death-rate arnofig the troops
serving in Southern Afghanistan." The death-rate
for the whole of India is 12.56 per thousand, as
against 10.88 the previous year. In connection with
this increase, it should be recollected that the rate for
the period 1870-9 was an average of 30 per thousand,
and that in the older days it was as high as 70. The
prevalence of each disease is discussed under different
sub-heads, and with regard to other diseases,
which continue to increase, the Commission state
despondingly that "the whole subject appears to be sur-
rounded with insurmountable difficultiss, for in every
Government disease has advanced, in the face of
every means of prevention which have been adopted."
There is reason to believe that the real remedy lies
with the home authorities, who, by an alteration in
the existing system of examination of out-going
regiments, can do much to assist the efforts of the
Indian Sanitary Commission. One other fact relating
to the English army is brought out in this report, and
that is the increase of invaliding among the young
troops—men under 25 and of from two to five years of
Indian service. •

The returns for the native army are altogether
more favourable. The hospital entries show an in- ,
crease of slight ailments, but the death-rate fell from
11-76 to 10.50. With regard to the civil population
the registration of vital statistics is reported to make
but slow progress. Even in Bengal the registration
of births is confined to selected towns, but con-
siderable progress is being' made with the regis-
tration of deaths. Epidemics are still the most
formidable scourges, and of the deaths reported
more than three-fifths are caused by fevers. ,
On this subject the Commission report that, "if
the villages are improved as they ought to be, the
fatality of fever will become less year after year, but
the amount of fever Is connected with the subsoil
water, which, in its turn, is dependent on the drainage
outlets, and it will continue pretty much as it is t.ntil
they, too, are made efficient. A satisfactory growth
of civil hospitals and dispensaries is recorded, and!
every year shows a larger percentage of applications
as compared with the population. This means the
relief, temporary or permanent, of much human
suffering.

51m:A of Spring—Bull fr9gs andother croak causes.
A YOUNG blue-stocking having, ins passion, thrown
an inkstand at her husband, and spattered him allover
with the black liquid, some atrocio,s wretch declare
that she had been engaged at the battle of ink her-
man.