A report on small-pox, as it appeared in Ceylon in 1833-34 : with an appendix / by J. Kinnis, M.D., superintendent of vaccination in the Colombo district.

  • Kinnis, John, 1794?-1853.
Date:
MDCCCXXXV [1835]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report on small-pox, as it appeared in Ceylon in 1833-34 : with an appendix / by J. Kinnis, M.D., superintendent of vaccination in the Colombo district. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    36/118 (page 22)
    23 REPORT ON SMALL-POX. ascertainefl to have had the disease, and 1,745 to have died, in the Maritime districts alone: yet extraordinary (when compared with tlie more recent clleets of tlie disease), as apjjear this ])revalencG and mortahty, it was not reg;arded as comprisin;? tiie whole amount. In the Kandyan provinces, it was found still more difficult to ascertain the precise numbers that wore at acked and died.—Returns from Kandy, Alipoot, Badulla, and other military stations in the interior,' from 15th Auo-nst 1819 to 15lh January 1820, pive 2,423 as the number of patients admitted into hospitals, opened for their reception, and 1,200 as the number of those admitted that died. But, as the people were osdy invited and not compelled, to avail themselves of those charitable establishments, the numbers mentioned doubtless fall considerably short of the whole that occurred, and that terminated fatally. * Tlie number then asci^rtained to have been attacked, throue,h- out the island, in the six months of 1819-20, in which the disease pr*'vailed, was no less than 7,874, and the number ascertained to have died no less than 2,945. 2. In the end of January 18.30, small-pox (again introduced from the Coast, apparently at Alikam near Caltura) appeared at Colombo. A second importation took place at Morottoo or Pantura, in March or April, and vai'ious cases were introduced from the Coast into Aripo duriufr the Pearl Fishery of the same year. After prevailing to some extent in Colombo, the disease spread to Kandy, Doombera, Matele, Fort McDonald, and the Four Korles. Three cases occurred at. Trincoinalie, the same number at Galle, and a few in the island of Manar; but its ravages were not to be compared with those it had committed in 1819 ; the number attacked in the Maritime districts being only 619 of small, and 411 of chicken-pox t, 1,030 in all, of whom 147 died;—in the Kandyan provinces 198 of small-pox, of whom 110 died; altogether throughout the island 1,228 cases (compri.Mng both sma.l and ehicken-pox), of whom 257 died, from the beginning to the end of the epidemic, embracing a period of fourteen months. (See Api)endix No. XII, 4tfi period.) * ('onvincing proof of this is furnislied by Dr. Farreli's accouoi of the dispHse in 1819, friim wliich cii|jinus extracts are given in tlie Appendix (No. Xll2)i<i period) ; for, in the first place, that account vcas written on the 20lli of January 1820, only five days afler the tennination of the half year to which it refers, and when consequently there must have been many cases recently adniitied into ho.spitals, wliicli afterwards terriiinated f.itally 2ndly, The returns from tli» Kandyan provinces embraced only five months, namely, from ISih August 1819 to 15th January 1820: 3rdly, In reference to the Maritime disiriots Dr. Farrell remarks that there is reason to suppose that several have hud the disease and some have died of whom we have had no account ; and, lastly, in speakinj of the Kandyan provinces, lliat it was the hopeless cases only that were bri)Ught to iiosiiitnl, wliile all who had the disease in its mild form took llieir chance of recovery at liii.ne. See al.so an extract from Deputy Inspector Marshall's Account of the disease tn Kandy, in the same Appendix. t Tvventyninft cases of chicken-pox, at most, are particularly noticed as having occurred during the prevah nce of small-pox in 1819, and even in fourteen of th(tg« the eruption >y'U8 of doubtful churacttr (see Appendis. XII) j but in a letter