Reports on mountain and marine sanitaria : medical and statistical observations on civil stations and military cantonments., jails - dispensaries - regiments - barracks, &c. within the Presidency of Madras, the Straits of Malacca, the Andaman Islands, and British Burmah from January 1858 to January 1862 / by Duncan Macpherson.

  • MacPherson, Duncan, M.D., 1812-1867.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports on mountain and marine sanitaria : medical and statistical observations on civil stations and military cantonments., jails - dispensaries - regiments - barracks, &c. within the Presidency of Madras, the Straits of Malacca, the Andaman Islands, and British Burmah from January 1858 to January 1862 / by Duncan Macpherson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    269/458 (page 221)
    2‘i SFX’TION' vr. Kurxool. In reference to the surrounding country, the town of Kurnool is placed quite in a hollow. It is the lowest part of the district, its elevation being nine hundred feet above sea-level, and occupies a narrow tongue of land which separates the confluence of the Hindree and Tumbudra rivers. The part where all the Officers reside is in some parts lower than the bed of the river, and it is impossible to secure drainage from the town from this circumstance, and from the fact that the banks of the streams are somewhat higher than the space on wdiich the town stands. As regards sanitary considerations no position could be worse than this for tlie habitation of man. The population of the city may be reckoned at 23,000 persons, half of Avhom arc Mahomedans, and all arc massed together in a contracted space in this low locality. The Officers of the force occupy houses constructed on the circular bastions of the old Fort, beneath and around whom on every side are the dense population amongst whom syphilis of a very malignant type> fever, small-pox, ophthalmia and cholera are always present. When cholera makes an inroad into the city, it works fearful havoc. The last outbreak in May and June last, carried off four Europeans out of the small European community, forty-one out of the Regiment, and close on 2,000 out of the town. From the superficial nature of the soil, which lies upon limestone and trap at a depth of seldom more than eight or ten inches, the interment ot the dead is of a very unsatisfactory nature, and the effluvia proceeding from the cemeteries is very oppres- sive and destructive to health. The European community have always one or more graves open, excavated from the rock below, ready to receive the first unfortunate victim to disease. This precaution is ado]fied as It takes days to excavate a grave to the proper depth. But when, as recently occurred, lour of them were carried off in the space of a few days, I am informed that it was hardly possible to convey the dead in the same locality, the stench was so fearful. The climate of Kurnool beyond the town is considered healthy though hot; the p’ound gradually rises from the river, and about a couple of miles from the confluence of the streams to the west is a favorable po.sition on red soil (the country around being entirely black) wliich His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief selected for the military cantonment ; and 1 beg to add my recommendation to that of His Excel- lency. SKRinS VI. Skctio.n VI. Topography. Climate,