Annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India.

  • India. Sanitary Commissioner
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    patient. The medical officer was unable to throw any light on the cause of the disease, but was of opinion that the source of infection might possibly be connected in some way with the soil. It is worthy of note that no case of beri-beri was recorded among native troops in this station. There were altogether 439 cases of dengue with one death, as compared with 303 cases with one death in 1903. The disease was practically confined to three stations in the Secunderabad Division and two in the Burma Division, Fort St. George (Madras) with 150 cases, St. Thomas’s Mount with 140 cases, and Rangoon with 141 cases being the chief places affected. At Fort St. George the disease was epidemic during July and August and again during October and November, but January was the only month during which no admis. sion was recorded. The medical officer brings forward evidence to show that a continued fever which in some years has been recorded under the headings of ague and simple continued fever and in others under the heading of dengue has prevailed in the fort for a number of years and that the recorded increase in the prevalence of dengue in recent years is largely the result of a change in diag¬ nosis. This opinion receives some support from the statement in the margin, from which it will be seen that during recent years dengue has taken the place in the statistics formerly occupied in some years by ague and in others by simple continued fever. As regards St. Thomas’s Mount, it is said that the epidemic of dengue prevailed from August to November. New-comers were much more liable to be attacked than those who had resided for some time in the station. At Rangoon the disease 1 Year. FEVERS IN MADRAS. Total admissions. Ague. Simple continued fever. Dengue. Total. 1897 170 10 0 180 1898 68 131 0 199 1899 96 85 O 181 1900 IOl 7 O 108 1901 27 168 O 195 1902 27 20 17 64 1903 17 1 82 loo 1904 13 3 150 166 was of a mild type, and prevailed chiefly from May to August. There were re* corded 63 admissions on account of BUharzia htsmatobia daring the year as compared with 318 in 1903, and as regards 26 of the cases it is stated that the men had arrived from service in South Africa. The number of stations in which a case or cases were detected was 26 as compared with 33 the previous year. Some of the patients who were found to be suffering from this disease in the previous year were invalided during 1904, so that there were in all 71 men invalided for this cause during the year. 18. Although there was a slight fall in the admission-rate on account of tubercle of the lungs for the European army as a whole (from 0*4 per mille in 1903 to 2*8 per mille in 1904), the Tubercle of the lungs. Appendix A to Section II and E to Section IV, Tables III and IV. death-rate rose from '24 to *38 per mille, and the number of men invalided for the disease rose from 91 to 223. There is therefore little cause for satisfaction in the lowered admission-rate, especially as this rate was higher than in the previous year in the Northern (Punjab) and Eastern (Bengal) Commands, where nearly half the total number of troops are located. Tne death-raie was considerably highest in group X (Western Coast), but this is not due to any special incidence of the disease on troops in this group, but to the fact that at Colaba there were five deaths among invalids from other stations who were awaiting passages to England ; and this number when worked upon the low strength of this group (1,645) gives the high ratio of 3*04 per mille as compared, for example, with a ratio of '91 per mille, which was the highest in anv other group, i he largest [29SC] 1
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