A manual of practical hygiene / by Edmund A. Parkes ; edited by F.S.B. Francois de Chaumont.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of practical hygiene / by Edmund A. Parkes ; edited by F.S.B. Francois de Chaumont. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    712/820 (page 656)
    SECTION VI. MAURITIUS. Garrison, about 1500 to 2000 men. Civil population (in 1875), 344,602. . Mauritius in the eastern has been often compared with Jamaica m the* western seas. The geographical position as respects the equator is not very dissimilar; the mean annual temperature (80° Fahr.) is almost the same ; the* fluctuations and undulations are more considerable, but still are not excessive; the humidity of air is nearly the same, or perhaps a little less ; the rainfall (66 to76 inches)is almost the same; and the physical formation is really not. very dissimilar. Yet, with all these points of similarity in climatic conditions, a the diseases are very different. Malarious fever was formerly not nearly so frequent as in Jamaica, and vellow fever is quite unknown; Mauritius, therefore, has never shown tho epochs of great mortality which the West Indies have had. Hepatic disease on the other hand, which are so uncommon in the West Indies, are very coi mon in the Mauritius. For example, in 1859 there were 47 cases of acui and chronic hepatitis in 1254 men, while in Jamaica there was one case oi of 807 men. In 1860 there were 31 admissions from acute hepatitis out oj 1886 men • in Jamaica, there was not a single case. In 1862 there were 12 cases of acute, 11 of chronic hepatitis, and 72 cases of hepatic congestion, ouf of 2049 men ; in Jamaica, in the same year, there was only 1 case of acuta hepatitis out of 702 men. This has always been marked ; is it owing tc> r error in diagnosis, or to differences in diet 1 It can scarcely be attributed any difference in climate. In 1863 the difference was less marked, but wa still evident. In later years, however, there has been considerable dinuM tion : in 1872 there were only 4 cases of hepatitis, and m 1873 only 2. feme that year no detailed statistics have been published. In 1866-67 a very severe epidemic fever prevailed in the Mauritius, wlnctti offers many points of interest. As already noted, the Mauritius has till lately been considered to be comparatively free from malaria^ All the older wntersr I have consulted state this, and it is apparent from all the statistical return Deputy-Inspector Dr Francis Eeid, in a late report* mentions that he n served ten years in the Mauritius, and had looked over the records of ti troops for twenty-four years. He found some records of intermittents but J traced all these to foreign sources, viz., troops coming from India, Unma,| Ceylon, and presenting cases of relapses. . _* For the first time, in the latter months of 1866 and the commencement of 1867, malarious fevers of undoubted local growth appeared on the western ^Thecmlses81 of this development are traced by Dr Reid, and also by Surgeoinj Major Small and Assistant-Surgeon W H. T. Power, in some very carefcUj Reports, f During the last few years a large anion at of fores land fc* been cleared, and there has been much upturning of the sod; coincidently the am . fall has lessened, and the rivers have become far less in volume At the yim time, there has been a large increase of population; a great ^defilement o > ground in the neighbourhood of villages and towns, so that m variois ] a j of the island there has been a constant drainage down of filth ot au m (vegetable and animal) into a loose soil of slight depth, resting on impermeaw j * Letter to the Director-General, Feb. 1867. „ „„„„ ... „ iqRqn On the, + Annual Report on tho District Prison Hospitals (in 1867, Mauritius, 18bS).. un Malarial Epidemic Fever of the Mauritius, Army Med. Depart. Report, vol. vm. p. w*