Medical topography and statistics of the Presidency of Madras : compiled from the records of the Medical Board Office.

Date:
1843-1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical topography and statistics of the Presidency of Madras : compiled from the records of the Medical Board Office. 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.

    163/654 (page 138)
    General results of the preceding tables of disease. GUNTOOK. l«ja In this^ as in the other jails in the division^, a great increase of prisoners of sickness and oi deaths, took place in 1833 and 1834, the famine having been very severely felt throughout the collector ate ; in every street men, women and children were met with perishing from want, and the cattle nearly all died, and many persons com- mitted crimes to gain admission into the jail, in order to be fed. During these years the average number of prisoners wait- ing for trial, was 1,573, the usual number not exceeding 35; and 1,199 admissions into hospital, with 429 deaths took place, being nearly four-fifths of all the admissions, and ful- ly ten-elevenths, of all the mortality which has occurred amongst this class of prisoners during the ten years ; the sick- ness it may also be remarked was confined almost exclusively to the years 1832, 33, 34 and 1835. The number of convicted prisoners during these years was not increased in a similar ratio, the average being 520, about double the usual number; almost one half however of all the sickness occurred in this period, and nearly three-fourths of all the mortality, there being 832 out of the total admissions 1,743, and 197 out of 260, the total number of deaths. Excluding these two years the annual average of sick to strength, during the remaining eight, is reduced from 50|- to 42g, and of deaths to sick, from 15 to 7 per cent; the an- nual number of admissions during these eight years averaging 114, and the annual deaths nearly 8. Diseases of Pri- sonets. The principal diseases met with in the jail are intermittent and remittent fever, the latter being occasionally severe and sometimes fatal, diarrhcea which is also occasi- onally fatal, es]3ecially in old subjects, cholera, catarrh, phthhis and rheumatism, dractmciilus is also not unfrequeiit, and lastly ulcers, which form the greatest number of admis- sions in ordinary years. The diseases which occurred in 1833 and 1834, v'cre simi- lar to those met with in the other jails, and described in the acco’-^nt of Nellore.