Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on relapsing or famine fever / by R.T. Lyons. 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.
48/408 (page 32)
![It is needless to relate, says Twining, the alarming extent of the sickness which prevailed in July and August; it is too well remembered by every one. The above meagre account, and another by Corbyn, equally concise, are the only ones extant of this great epidemic; but they reflect much light upon the nature of the disease called by Twining the remittent fever of the Bengal rainy season. The epidemics of Lower Bengal, in recent times, were probably of the same nature. Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta, vol. vii., for 1835. In the years 1833 and 1834, the Dindigul district of the Madras presidency was again ravaged by a severe and fatal epidemic. This statement is made on the authority of the editors of the Madras Quarterly Journal of Medical Science. See vol. iii., for 1861, p. 168. In the year 1833, relapsing fever occurred amongst the native troops employed in the operations against the hill tribes of Groomah and Kimedy. The epidemic is described by ]Mr. McDonell, under the name of jungle fever in the Northern Circars. The account is minute and consistent, and the production of an acute observer. Mr. McDonell clearly describes the disease known to the old physicians as jungle fever, the circumstances under which it arises, and the results of treatment. It is the best history of jungle fever extant in medical literature ; and from it I obtained a knowledge of the nature of this disease. The Kimedy hills are described by Mr. McDonell as covered with lofty trees, and a dense and almost impene- trable thorny underwood; between the hills are numberless small valleys. On the 26th June, 1833, 240 sepoys were concentrated at a village called Goomah, about 36 miles distant from Kimedy. At this season there was a general want of water, as the hill streams were dried up; still the general appearance of the country was green. The men underwent much fatigue, exposure to showers of rain, and were under the necessity of remaining in wet clothes for hours, and on some occasions for two or three days, as they had no tents. To these misfortunes was added privation of diet, for Goomah was without supplies of any kind, every living thing having been driven to the hills. For two days](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21987403_0048.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
