A treatise on the public health, climate, hygeine [sic], and prevailing diseases, of Bengal and the North-West Provinces / By Kenneth Mackinnon.
- MacKinnon, Kenneth
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the public health, climate, hygeine [sic], and prevailing diseases, of Bengal and the North-West Provinces / By Kenneth Mackinnon. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![lehrated saving of Burke almost yet literally true, that if we were driven from India, there would he nothing to trace our occupation of it. As soon as each hot weather sets in, the native iiiocula- pprc id of vu- tors commence their trade, sewing the seeds of variola in the riula. crowded, ill-ventilated, and fihhy villages and towns.* 'I'he crop is abundant, and in some seasons, to dro|) metaphor, the mortal- ity is fearful, (’onsidering the obstacles to the spread of vacei- ...... 1 • I/.Causes whiih nation ; the small sum allowed for the object, rupees sue- among more than as many millions; the liability of the dh.ease hi eess ot vaccine. become inert or spurious; and the prejudices of the people against Sn<^ire8tioii its use ; it has often suggested itself to me, whether it would not be better to organize a system of inoculation, susceptible as it would be of a wide spreading usefulness. In conclusion of this Conchidiiig sug- 1 ir. .• . .. . . ... gcstioiis on iia- braiich ot tlie subject, 1 may remark that, Ihoiigli tropn-al heat, (ive|iuljhc health luxuriant vegetation, and ilaiii|), low' lying soil, are inimical to health, yet these causes would have much less effect, if the peo- ple were advanced in their social condition, and the local, jiar- ticular and more tangible causes of disease removed. Then, perhaps, w’e should find that this climate approached in salu- brity nearer than we imagine to that of our own country. There a great part of the population have the means, and make use of them, of guarding against disease. Here the bulk of the people are poor and comfortless ; the rest (piite ignorant of and inditferent to the art of ])reserving health. While com- menting on the absence of great public measures, for improv- ing health, it is but fair to notice how' far happier the condition of the bulk of the population must now be, to what it ever could have been under Native Government. No people can * The least that we should ilo would be to devote a part of the resources of India to the improveineut of the sanatory coiulitiou of its cities.—Lancet. The truth is, says Monsieur DcMetz, in a letter on prison dis- cipline, a country is not exhausting its resources, when it is esta- blishing useful institutions,—on the contrary it is enriching itself. For sanatory suggestions, see the appendix to the chapters on public health and climate, and the chapter on Ilygciue. B](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2870874x_0047.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
