Reports bringing up the statistical history of the European Army in India and of the Native Army and jail population of Bengal to 1876 : and the cholera history of 1875 and 1876, in continuation of reports embracing the period from 1817 to 1872 / by J.L.Bryden.
- James Bryden
- Date:
- 1878
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Reports bringing up the statistical history of the European Army in India and of the Native Army and jail population of Bengal to 1876 : and the cholera history of 1875 and 1876, in continuation of reports embracing the period from 1817 to 1872 / by J.L.Bryden. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![appearance was, precisely as in the Behar Provinces, the first week of October. Dr. Naismith of Benares, writes :— So general were the ravages of fever during the months of October, No- vember and December in the city and district of Benares, that few families altogether escaped; and for the time the population generally seemed prostrated by the extent of its inroads. This fever, though not generally fatal, yet proved destructive either by assuming typhoid and con- gestive features, or by inducing spleen cachexia and visceral disease. The outbreak was the sequel, and, in my opinion, the effect, of a late and heavy fall of rain which lasted for several days in October. As in Behar, the prisoners suffered far less than the free community, Dr. Naismith adds :■■— The health of the prisoners even during the sickUest season will contrast most favovirably with that of the population generally, both in regard to the prevalence of the disease and the mortality.'^ Dr. Garden, of Ghazeepore, the adjoining district, makes the same j observation. He says,— I attribute the small number of deaths from fever to the favourable j circumstances under which the prisoners were placed; which, without doubt, influenced the disease considerably. All of these reports were written at the time, and without intercommu- , nication between the different medical officers. And yet their statements are perfectly harmo- nious. Dr. Garden continues :— On October 6th, 7th and 8th, four or five inches of rain fell, after which the fever became prevalent, in degree, according to the circumstances under which different classes of individuals were placed.* In the districts where everything was favourable to the production and action of malaria, the fever raged most fearfully and most fatally. Regarding the jail he says :— The fever would hardly have claimed atten- tion for itself on any grounds except perhaps the greatly increased number of admissions, were it not for its evident connection with that which simultaneously raged throug-hout the whole of this and the neighbouring districts, and which, assuming a typhoid form, proved fatal to a most fearful extent. The fever, as he observed it in the jail, Dr. Garden, ; thus describes : In the great majority of cases the symptoms were those of ordinary inter- j mittent fever, and some few cases were remittent. The most marked points about it were the !| very rapid prostration of the patient's strength, so that in two or three days they were hardly • ii able to move, and the extreme irregularity of the cases, which showed a tendency to change of type, from quotidian to tertian, and vice versa. In the Police Battalion the fever was universal. In one outpost twenty-five out of thirty men were struck down in one day. Some of the police attacked in the district were brought to Ghazeepore^ and in their eases Dr. Garden had an ] opportunity of seeing the pernicious form of the fever,—the same which was ravaging the district. i He writes : The patients were brought in from some distance, and, having been ill a day or two, 'i were semi-comatose or entirely insensible, but not delirious; the pulse was small, fluttering and almost imperceptible, and there were all the symptoms of a rapid failure of the vital powers. | I might quote similar observations made in the Sasseram and Mirzapore districts, but it is i unnecessary to do so. ] Now, it is essential that there should be no misunderstanding as to the character of this fever of the Gangetic Provinces. From Rajshahye to Mirzapore it was universally recognised and acknowledged to have every attribute of malarious fever; and the unanimity of the medical officers throughout the Gangetic Provinces on this point, is without a single exception. j It was a fever unusual in its prevalence, and an invading epidemic,—a fever which showed its I manifestations in the mildest form of intermittent, or, according to circumstances, proved so | malignant, that in a few days the patient sank into the typhoid of the worst description of i jungle fever. ''\ The Deputy Commissioner of Saugor, in a special report on the epidemic of his district in The epidemic of malaria iu the 1859,t givcs many details which lead us to remove this fever Savigor District aud other tracts of from the province of typhus, to which the general epidemic of the i Central India. Saugor District of 1859 has been attributed. He tells us that ! the early crops of 1859 were remarkable for their great abundance : Grain was extremely cheap, and I have never, in an experience of nine years, known the mass of the people so well off for food of the best description. j As with the epidemic malaria of 1869, it was during a break in the rains of 1859 that | this fever was first noticed, and by this alone we recognise that the fever which prevailed 
