dhlipil ?tipi(!i. SCARLET FEVER IN INDIA.
With reference to the question of scarlatina in India in our August issue, we have up to now received some sixty or so replies to the queries suggested by Drs. Caddy and Cook. In only one* * Since the above was written we have received notes of another case from Lieut-Colonel J. Moran, m d., i.m.s., Civil Surgeon of Mussouri. This casj was met with in April 1881 at Moradabad, in a Scotch lady, lhe lufection It occurred four was probably conveyed through a nurse. days after child-birth. Vivid redness of mucous membrane of
throat
was
noted,
no
ulceration, tongue at first covered with
.Oct.
THE
1899.]
CENTRAL PROVINCES PLAGUE REPORT.
send a positive ?reply. Captain McNauglit, K.A.M.C., had seen a few cases among European soldiers' children in the lines at Quetta; he was quite sure of the diagnosis, and as an ex-resident medical officer of the Glasgow Fever Hospital, he is scarcely likely to be mistaken. In every other instance the replies were all negative, and were received from men in all parts of Burma, India and Ceylon. By a strange coincidence it happened that our contemporary the Journal of Tropical Medicine discussed the same question in its issue for July. In the August issue now to hand, we find an article by Colonel K. McLeod, of Netley, in which he refers to all the cases reported in the columns of the Indian Medical Gazette for the past 30 years. He concludes that (1) scarlet fever has often been imported by troop-ships, and that small epidemics in Indian native children have occurred. (2) Such epidemics were always of a very limited kind and have speedily died out. (3) They appear to have been more protracted in hill stations than on the plains. (4) Cases and groups of cases have been of which could not be the instance did any medical
observed, (5)
man
origin
The disease does not prevail (6) epidemically among the indigenous races. Cases of an exanthem closely resembling, if not identical with scarlet fever have appealed in Calcutta and elsewhere. These have been mostlj7 single and limited to one family, and have shown was no disposition to diffusion. The subject so long dealt with editorially in our columns of 110 ago as 1871, a> propos of an outbreak From a note by cases in the 44th Regiment. scarlet fevei that Dr. Izett Anderson it appears is equally rare in Jamaica. ascertained.
LONDON. TEACHING OF TROPICAL DISEASES in
For the sake of those of our readeis who may we lepio shortly be proceeding on long leave, duce here a few notes which we have iecei\et from the man on furlough." in "The best lectures at present delivered iose aie liondon, on diseases of the tropics, given by Dr. Patrick Manson at St. Georges is The course, the fee for which "
,
.
Hospital.
?3 3s., lasts about two months, beginning in the middle of May and ending in the middle of July. The lectures, of which there are 20 in all, are delivered twice weekly, on Tuesday and Fiida}7, a 5 p.m. Thesubstance of the lectures will bepiactically found in the lecturer's most excellent Diseases. The lectures are Manual on
Tropical
brownish fur, afterwards red and raw. The rash was noticed on the flfth day after delivery. Desquamation began on fifth day of rash and continued for three diiya. The
temperature was high and did not reach normal till the 12th day of the scarlatina. Two months after the toe-nails _were reported to have been ehed ; no other sequela. The infant female child was also attacked on second or third day after the mother; the attack in the infant was very slight.
379
in a clear, lucid style/ illustrated by cases drawn from the lecturer's unrivalled experience in the treatment of these diseases. Proportionally the largest number of lectures are devoted to the subject of malaria, and Dr. Manson, when dealing with this subject and with the filarial diseases, is undoubtedly at his best. At the conclusion of the lectures, beautiful microscopic preparations of the various malarial parasites in varying stages of their development, specimens of the various filarise, ova of the different nematode worms, &c., are shown. Dr. Manson is an enthusiastic worker and teacher, and it is well worth attending his lectures if only in the hope of being infected with some of his persistent earnestness in the pursuit of knowledge of his special subject. Through the courtesy of Dr. Manson, the members of his class were enabled to see his cases at the Seamen's Branch Hospital, Victoria and Albert Docks, on his visiting days, viz., Monday and Thursday, at 3 P.M. Here living malarial parasites in various stages, crescents, flagellated bodies, &c., were demonstrated under the microscope, and the methods of making preparations shown. As regard the Branch Hospital, there are at present only 25 beds, though this number will be doubled when the new buildings are completed. Of these 25 beds, a considerable number are occupied by surgical cases, so that to a visitor from India the material for teaching seems somewhat scanty. This lack of clinicial material appears likely to be the chief obstacle to the success of the new tropical school shortly to be opened (October next), though it is probable that Dr. Manson with his usual energy will find means to overcome the difficulty and fill his beds with suitable cases. During the time the lectures lasted, the cases of tropical disease admitted to the ward consisted of sufferers from malarial fever, dysentery, beri-beri and liver abscess."
given
GOOD HEALTH AND BAD WATER.
The
following
extract from the
Inspector-General
of
report of the
Prisons, Burma,
is instructive:? "It may be well to record here that though the inmates of the Magwe Jail use, for all purposes, water containing from 70 to 80 grains per gallon of solids in solution, with 6 to 7 grains per gallon of chlorine, and the inmates of the Myingyan Jail in the same way use water containing from 109 to 130 grains of solids, with 3 to 4 grains of chlorine (in the latterjja.il the water is boiled), yet these two jails continue to be the healthiest in the Province." THE CENTRAL PROVINCES
PLAGUE
ColonifiL Hutchinson, i.m.s.,
REPORT.
the Administrative Medical Officer who reported oh the butwas
380
THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.
breaks of plague in the Central Provinces in 1898. Up to November 1898, the preventive were successful in measures on the railwa37s 22 cases out the disease, keeping having been detected at various stations?8 at Itarsi, 4 at Nagpur, 2 at Burhanpur and 2 at Sohagpur, and the rest at minor stations. At Khandwa a traveller arrived on 20th October, developed plague on 25th and died on 29th. Next day a dead rat was found in his house, and on 2nd November another inmate fell ill of plague. The house was isolated and supervised, and the disease spread no further. Other outbreaks occurred at Hinganghat, at Wardha, Bhandara and Nagpur. In Nagpur, up to November 1898, five imported cases had been met and promptly treated. At last a case was concealed with the inevitable result that the disease spread, and 36 cases, 29 fatal, took place in a town of 93,000 inhabitants. The people left each locality in the town as it became infected, which may explain the few cases which occurred in a large town like Nagpur. In the Hinganghat and Wardha The outbreaks 653 persons were inoculated. names of Major Silcock, I.M.S., and Dr. Horendronath Ray are specially mentioned for good work done. DISEASES IN CENTRAL ASIA.
Mr. F. H. Skuine (i.c.s., retd.) in his recent The Heart of Asia," has something to book, say of the diseases prevalent in the new dominions of the Tzar. Intermittent fevers have been very prevalent. That this scourge is connected with irrigation is without a doubt, for the western districts, where water is scarce, are comparatively free from it." " The conditions prevailing," writes are the ex-Bengal Magistrate, precisely the same as those in Central Bengal which is in the process of being slowly depopulated by malarial fevers." [This is nonsense.] In both countries we have a water-logged subsoil. Small-pox is as fatal in Transcaspia as malarial fever. Epidemics used to come annually, but the Russians introduced vaccination, and instead of 50 per cent, of the children being disfigured or slain by the pest, small-pox is almost unknown, vaccination being now popular after surmounting a vast amount of prejudice. Enteric fever, which (says Mr. Skrine with Oriental exaggeration) is increasing in Indian garrisons in an alarming ratio, is rare in Central Asia. The last cholera epidemic was in 1892, when it travelled very rapidly along the line of rail, causing 1,859 deaths out of 3,471 attacks. The loss by death and invaliding to the Russian army in Transcaspia exceeds 30 per mille annually. "
"
"
THE LATE DR. MARIA DOUGLASS.
A Rangoon correspondent sends us a sympathetic notice in the Rangoon Gazette of the
[Oct.
1899.
late Dr. Maria Douglass, who recently died in America. Dr. Douglass belonged to the American Baptist Mission, and in 1887 was appointed in charge of the Lying-in-Hospital, Rangoon. In 1889 the Burma Branch of the Dufferin Fund recorded their very high sense of the services rendered to the institution by Dr. Maria Douglass. BERI-BERI versus MALARIA.
A propos of the dispute in Rajahmundry Jail on the nature of the sickness there, it is interesting to find that the same difference of opinion exists in another supposed endemic home of beri-beri, viz., Rio de Janeiro. Havelburgh, of U. S. Marine, states that he has often seen cases said to be beri-beri, but which he considered paludal infection, and his colleague, Dr. Fajardo, had discovered a hcematozoon in 52 cases with 6 necropsies which had a resemblance to of that strong malaria.?(Surgeon-General, U. S. M. Report, p. 282.) "
"
A SANITARIUM FOR SIMLA.
We heartily endorse the following :? A want that has been growing on Simla for years, and that is felt with increasing urgency each successive season, is that of a hospital and convalescent home for European patients after the pattern of the Eden Sanitarium at Darjeeling the Ramsay Hospital at Naini Tal. The or question was taken up in earnest by Colonel B. Franklin, C.I.E., on his return to Simla in the capacity of chief of the Civil Medical Department in the Punjab; but although all the authorities were in a general way benevolently disposed towards the project, the scarcity of sites and their expensiveness when found promised to make the question of obtaining a starting point for practical work a long and difficult one. Suddenly all difficulties on this score have been resolved by the generosity of a Mr. James Walker, c.i.e., private individual. not content apparently with all that he has done for Simla during the many years of his personal connection with the place, has just made a promise of his estate, Gorton Castle, perhaps the most valuable house property in the station, as a free gift for the p urposes of the proposed" "
sanitarium."?Pioneer.
BERI-BERI.
We would be much obliged if medical officers serving in Madras or Burma would communicate with us on their experiences on the prevalence No disease has given or otherwise of beri-beri. India and elsewhere in rise to more controversy than beri-beri, yet when one reads the text-book descriptions, the condition of the heart and the neuritis should alone, one would think, settle.
Oct. the or
TYPHOID FEVER IN THE FRENCH ARMY.
1899.] diagnosis.
prevalence
It is about time that its existence in India were settled.*
QUININE-MAKING IN BENGAL.
Major Prain's interesting report for 1898-99 has recently been published. The total number of living plants in stock amount to considerably over two millions. The outturn of the factory was 10,335 lbs. of sulphate of quinine and 3,921 lbs. of cinchona febrifuge. This large amount is absorbed in the issues to the medical store ?depots at Calcutta and Mian Mir, and to the
Jail for manufacture into "pice packets through the post offices. Another large amount was sold to hospitals and dispensaries and to the public. There appears to be no ?quinine exported to other countries. An arrangement has been made between the Madras and Bengal factories about the purchase of bark.
Alipur
for sale
disease." The report says there has been a falling off in this most preventible form of disease, a decrease of over 5,000 admissions to hospital. The admissions per mille among abstainers were 208, among non-abstainers 301. This is satisfactory and a distinct improvement on the figures for 1897. AN
jungles unhealthy during
greater
parties
THE ARMY TEMPERANCE ASSOCIATION.
received the
Temperance Association,
a
report of the Aimy society which eveiy
who has the interests of the British Aimy at heart is interested in. We are glad to lead of general progress all round. Here we are moie concerned with the effects of temperance on health. We never could see why temperance men should get enteric more than others. If the microbes exist in soda-water, the addition or will not kill them. Statements have been one
whisky
recently that enteric is more common Secieamong temperance men, but the General stateand "wild calls them prejudiced tary will We to refute. ments which he hopes soon is The chiefly refutation. his see report gladly made
"
_
concerned with the relation between drink and what is here politely called "pi^ventible disease" or what the British Medical Journal enthetic ina moment of modesty called once "
[* We are glad to see that Mr. Chamberlain has arranged that Dr. Hamilton Wright is to go to the Malay Peninsula to investigate this disease. The Royal Society is also supporting the scheme, which we wish every success. It may be remembered that some years ago Pekelhaering and Winkler were sent out for the same purpose by the Belgian The results of their labours are to be found government. in their work on Beri-beri, translated by Mr. J. Cantlie < Young J. Pentland).?Ed., I. M. 6f.]
TREE.
"
PLAGUE
the year, e.g., in the Terai, Dun and Nerbudda Districts, until the local medical authority lias ascertained that the district in question is free of malaria ; also in the hot weather tents must be sent with out shooting for over three daj'S.
We have
ANTI-MALARIAL
We learn from our contemporary Indian Gardening that melaleuca leucadendron, or the cajeput tree of North India, Szc., has a great reputation in Australia and Jamaica as antimalarial, superior even to the eucalyptus. We are afraid, however, that now-a-days this will, not be attributed to any antiseptic or antimiasmatic oil," but rather to the fact that the tree grows quickly and helps to drain damp soil
SHOOTING IN THE TERAI.
It having been brought to the notice of the Lieutenant-General Commanding the Bengal Army that five soldiers who had been granted shooting passes had become seriously ill from the result of exposure and malaria, it has been ordered that no passes shall be granted to shoot in the part of
381
IN
EUROPE.
Perhaps the fact that for several days or weeks the existence of plague at Oporto was concealed by the Portuguese authorities, will lead critics in their arm-chairs in London to be more sparing in their criticism of plague measures in India. When the plague is far away it is very easy to say what should be done. What proof is there that the disease was introduced into Oporto by means of clothing or cloths from India ? By-the-by it is curious that in few of the recent outbreaks the origin could be traced, e.g., in Alexandria. There is many a Continental town in which plague should be able to find a congenial soil. It is also
reported
Delagoa Bay.
near
THE
INDIAN
MEDICAL
GAZETTE.
published in this Gazette during the past year were quoted no less than 38 times in the last Report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India. Articles
TYPHOID FEVER IN THE FRENCH ARMY.
The Archives de Medicine Navale for June contains an interesting article on enteric fever in the French Army. The garrison at Cherburgh suffered greatly. From November 1808 to January 1899 no less than 628 cases were admitted. The mortality was only 10 per cent. Dr. Nollet inclines to attribute this violent outbreak to the heavy rains in October washing sewage from the fields into the drinking water. The barracks were also in a very inferior hygienic condition. The bacillus of Eberth was said It is somewhat to be found in the floor dust. remarkable after the praises which have been sounded about the Pasteur filter having banished typhoid from the French Army to find Dr. Nollet recommending the abolition of this filter. It is apparently as bad as the old Macnamara
382
THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.
filter of the British barracks. Dr. Nollet confesses the French were infatuated over the Pasteur filter, and "now none so poor as do it We are still, therefore, without a reverence." in spite of all that has been filter satisfactory said and done about the Pasteur one. THE CORONER IN THE MOFUSSAL.'
We call the special attention of those concerned and invite comment upon Major Walsh's We are sure that all Civil article in this issue. will with him that something agree Surgeons should be dona to make this work less disagreeable, we were going to say less repulsive, in the hot weather. When we remember that in several Bengal districts there are 200 or 300 autopsies to be done in a year, the matter becomes one of great importance in the interests of justice. OUR CONTRIBUTORS.
Contributors are reminded that we go to press not later than the 7th of each month, therefore articles intended for publication in next issue should be in hands of the Editor on or, if possible, before the 7th of each month.
[Oct.
1899.
With reference to the question of scarlatina in India in our August issue, we have up to now received some sixty or so replies to the queries suggested by Drs. Caddy and Cook. In only one* * Since the above was written we have received notes of another case from Lieut-Colonel J. Moran, m d., i.m.s., Civil Surgeon of Mussouri. This casj was met with in April 1881 at Moradabad, in a Scotch lady, lhe lufection It occurred four was probably conveyed through a nurse. days after child-birth. Vivid redness of mucous membrane of
throat
was
noted,
no
ulceration, tongue at first covered with
.Oct.
THE
1899.]
CENTRAL PROVINCES PLAGUE REPORT.
send a positive ?reply. Captain McNauglit, K.A.M.C., had seen a few cases among European soldiers' children in the lines at Quetta; he was quite sure of the diagnosis, and as an ex-resident medical officer of the Glasgow Fever Hospital, he is scarcely likely to be mistaken. In every other instance the replies were all negative, and were received from men in all parts of Burma, India and Ceylon. By a strange coincidence it happened that our contemporary the Journal of Tropical Medicine discussed the same question in its issue for July. In the August issue now to hand, we find an article by Colonel K. McLeod, of Netley, in which he refers to all the cases reported in the columns of the Indian Medical Gazette for the past 30 years. He concludes that (1) scarlet fever has often been imported by troop-ships, and that small epidemics in Indian native children have occurred. (2) Such epidemics were always of a very limited kind and have speedily died out. (3) They appear to have been more protracted in hill stations than on the plains. (4) Cases and groups of cases have been of which could not be the instance did any medical
observed, (5)
man
origin
The disease does not prevail (6) epidemically among the indigenous races. Cases of an exanthem closely resembling, if not identical with scarlet fever have appealed in Calcutta and elsewhere. These have been mostlj7 single and limited to one family, and have shown was no disposition to diffusion. The subject so long dealt with editorially in our columns of 110 ago as 1871, a> propos of an outbreak From a note by cases in the 44th Regiment. scarlet fevei that Dr. Izett Anderson it appears is equally rare in Jamaica. ascertained.
LONDON. TEACHING OF TROPICAL DISEASES in
For the sake of those of our readeis who may we lepio shortly be proceeding on long leave, duce here a few notes which we have iecei\et from the man on furlough." in "The best lectures at present delivered iose aie liondon, on diseases of the tropics, given by Dr. Patrick Manson at St. Georges is The course, the fee for which "
,
.
Hospital.
?3 3s., lasts about two months, beginning in the middle of May and ending in the middle of July. The lectures, of which there are 20 in all, are delivered twice weekly, on Tuesday and Fiida}7, a 5 p.m. Thesubstance of the lectures will bepiactically found in the lecturer's most excellent Diseases. The lectures are Manual on
Tropical
brownish fur, afterwards red and raw. The rash was noticed on the flfth day after delivery. Desquamation began on fifth day of rash and continued for three diiya. The
temperature was high and did not reach normal till the 12th day of the scarlatina. Two months after the toe-nails _were reported to have been ehed ; no other sequela. The infant female child was also attacked on second or third day after the mother; the attack in the infant was very slight.
379
in a clear, lucid style/ illustrated by cases drawn from the lecturer's unrivalled experience in the treatment of these diseases. Proportionally the largest number of lectures are devoted to the subject of malaria, and Dr. Manson, when dealing with this subject and with the filarial diseases, is undoubtedly at his best. At the conclusion of the lectures, beautiful microscopic preparations of the various malarial parasites in varying stages of their development, specimens of the various filarise, ova of the different nematode worms, &c., are shown. Dr. Manson is an enthusiastic worker and teacher, and it is well worth attending his lectures if only in the hope of being infected with some of his persistent earnestness in the pursuit of knowledge of his special subject. Through the courtesy of Dr. Manson, the members of his class were enabled to see his cases at the Seamen's Branch Hospital, Victoria and Albert Docks, on his visiting days, viz., Monday and Thursday, at 3 P.M. Here living malarial parasites in various stages, crescents, flagellated bodies, &c., were demonstrated under the microscope, and the methods of making preparations shown. As regard the Branch Hospital, there are at present only 25 beds, though this number will be doubled when the new buildings are completed. Of these 25 beds, a considerable number are occupied by surgical cases, so that to a visitor from India the material for teaching seems somewhat scanty. This lack of clinicial material appears likely to be the chief obstacle to the success of the new tropical school shortly to be opened (October next), though it is probable that Dr. Manson with his usual energy will find means to overcome the difficulty and fill his beds with suitable cases. During the time the lectures lasted, the cases of tropical disease admitted to the ward consisted of sufferers from malarial fever, dysentery, beri-beri and liver abscess."
given
GOOD HEALTH AND BAD WATER.
The
following
extract from the
Inspector-General
of
report of the
Prisons, Burma,
is instructive:? "It may be well to record here that though the inmates of the Magwe Jail use, for all purposes, water containing from 70 to 80 grains per gallon of solids in solution, with 6 to 7 grains per gallon of chlorine, and the inmates of the Myingyan Jail in the same way use water containing from 109 to 130 grains of solids, with 3 to 4 grains of chlorine (in the latterjja.il the water is boiled), yet these two jails continue to be the healthiest in the Province." THE CENTRAL PROVINCES
PLAGUE
ColonifiL Hutchinson, i.m.s.,
REPORT.
the Administrative Medical Officer who reported oh the butwas
380
THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.
breaks of plague in the Central Provinces in 1898. Up to November 1898, the preventive were successful in measures on the railwa37s 22 cases out the disease, keeping having been detected at various stations?8 at Itarsi, 4 at Nagpur, 2 at Burhanpur and 2 at Sohagpur, and the rest at minor stations. At Khandwa a traveller arrived on 20th October, developed plague on 25th and died on 29th. Next day a dead rat was found in his house, and on 2nd November another inmate fell ill of plague. The house was isolated and supervised, and the disease spread no further. Other outbreaks occurred at Hinganghat, at Wardha, Bhandara and Nagpur. In Nagpur, up to November 1898, five imported cases had been met and promptly treated. At last a case was concealed with the inevitable result that the disease spread, and 36 cases, 29 fatal, took place in a town of 93,000 inhabitants. The people left each locality in the town as it became infected, which may explain the few cases which occurred in a large town like Nagpur. In the Hinganghat and Wardha The outbreaks 653 persons were inoculated. names of Major Silcock, I.M.S., and Dr. Horendronath Ray are specially mentioned for good work done. DISEASES IN CENTRAL ASIA.
Mr. F. H. Skuine (i.c.s., retd.) in his recent The Heart of Asia," has something to book, say of the diseases prevalent in the new dominions of the Tzar. Intermittent fevers have been very prevalent. That this scourge is connected with irrigation is without a doubt, for the western districts, where water is scarce, are comparatively free from it." " The conditions prevailing," writes are the ex-Bengal Magistrate, precisely the same as those in Central Bengal which is in the process of being slowly depopulated by malarial fevers." [This is nonsense.] In both countries we have a water-logged subsoil. Small-pox is as fatal in Transcaspia as malarial fever. Epidemics used to come annually, but the Russians introduced vaccination, and instead of 50 per cent, of the children being disfigured or slain by the pest, small-pox is almost unknown, vaccination being now popular after surmounting a vast amount of prejudice. Enteric fever, which (says Mr. Skrine with Oriental exaggeration) is increasing in Indian garrisons in an alarming ratio, is rare in Central Asia. The last cholera epidemic was in 1892, when it travelled very rapidly along the line of rail, causing 1,859 deaths out of 3,471 attacks. The loss by death and invaliding to the Russian army in Transcaspia exceeds 30 per mille annually. "
"
"
THE LATE DR. MARIA DOUGLASS.
A Rangoon correspondent sends us a sympathetic notice in the Rangoon Gazette of the
[Oct.
1899.
late Dr. Maria Douglass, who recently died in America. Dr. Douglass belonged to the American Baptist Mission, and in 1887 was appointed in charge of the Lying-in-Hospital, Rangoon. In 1889 the Burma Branch of the Dufferin Fund recorded their very high sense of the services rendered to the institution by Dr. Maria Douglass. BERI-BERI versus MALARIA.
A propos of the dispute in Rajahmundry Jail on the nature of the sickness there, it is interesting to find that the same difference of opinion exists in another supposed endemic home of beri-beri, viz., Rio de Janeiro. Havelburgh, of U. S. Marine, states that he has often seen cases said to be beri-beri, but which he considered paludal infection, and his colleague, Dr. Fajardo, had discovered a hcematozoon in 52 cases with 6 necropsies which had a resemblance to of that strong malaria.?(Surgeon-General, U. S. M. Report, p. 282.) "
"
A SANITARIUM FOR SIMLA.
We heartily endorse the following :? A want that has been growing on Simla for years, and that is felt with increasing urgency each successive season, is that of a hospital and convalescent home for European patients after the pattern of the Eden Sanitarium at Darjeeling the Ramsay Hospital at Naini Tal. The or question was taken up in earnest by Colonel B. Franklin, C.I.E., on his return to Simla in the capacity of chief of the Civil Medical Department in the Punjab; but although all the authorities were in a general way benevolently disposed towards the project, the scarcity of sites and their expensiveness when found promised to make the question of obtaining a starting point for practical work a long and difficult one. Suddenly all difficulties on this score have been resolved by the generosity of a Mr. James Walker, c.i.e., private individual. not content apparently with all that he has done for Simla during the many years of his personal connection with the place, has just made a promise of his estate, Gorton Castle, perhaps the most valuable house property in the station, as a free gift for the p urposes of the proposed" "
sanitarium."?Pioneer.
BERI-BERI.
We would be much obliged if medical officers serving in Madras or Burma would communicate with us on their experiences on the prevalence No disease has given or otherwise of beri-beri. India and elsewhere in rise to more controversy than beri-beri, yet when one reads the text-book descriptions, the condition of the heart and the neuritis should alone, one would think, settle.
Oct. the or
TYPHOID FEVER IN THE FRENCH ARMY.
1899.] diagnosis.
prevalence
It is about time that its existence in India were settled.*
QUININE-MAKING IN BENGAL.
Major Prain's interesting report for 1898-99 has recently been published. The total number of living plants in stock amount to considerably over two millions. The outturn of the factory was 10,335 lbs. of sulphate of quinine and 3,921 lbs. of cinchona febrifuge. This large amount is absorbed in the issues to the medical store ?depots at Calcutta and Mian Mir, and to the
Jail for manufacture into "pice packets through the post offices. Another large amount was sold to hospitals and dispensaries and to the public. There appears to be no ?quinine exported to other countries. An arrangement has been made between the Madras and Bengal factories about the purchase of bark.
Alipur
for sale
disease." The report says there has been a falling off in this most preventible form of disease, a decrease of over 5,000 admissions to hospital. The admissions per mille among abstainers were 208, among non-abstainers 301. This is satisfactory and a distinct improvement on the figures for 1897. AN
jungles unhealthy during
greater
parties
THE ARMY TEMPERANCE ASSOCIATION.
received the
Temperance Association,
a
report of the Aimy society which eveiy
who has the interests of the British Aimy at heart is interested in. We are glad to lead of general progress all round. Here we are moie concerned with the effects of temperance on health. We never could see why temperance men should get enteric more than others. If the microbes exist in soda-water, the addition or will not kill them. Statements have been one
whisky
recently that enteric is more common Secieamong temperance men, but the General stateand "wild calls them prejudiced tary will We to refute. ments which he hopes soon is The chiefly refutation. his see report gladly made
"
_
concerned with the relation between drink and what is here politely called "pi^ventible disease" or what the British Medical Journal enthetic ina moment of modesty called once "
[* We are glad to see that Mr. Chamberlain has arranged that Dr. Hamilton Wright is to go to the Malay Peninsula to investigate this disease. The Royal Society is also supporting the scheme, which we wish every success. It may be remembered that some years ago Pekelhaering and Winkler were sent out for the same purpose by the Belgian The results of their labours are to be found government. in their work on Beri-beri, translated by Mr. J. Cantlie < Young J. Pentland).?Ed., I. M. 6f.]
TREE.
"
PLAGUE
the year, e.g., in the Terai, Dun and Nerbudda Districts, until the local medical authority lias ascertained that the district in question is free of malaria ; also in the hot weather tents must be sent with out shooting for over three daj'S.
We have
ANTI-MALARIAL
We learn from our contemporary Indian Gardening that melaleuca leucadendron, or the cajeput tree of North India, Szc., has a great reputation in Australia and Jamaica as antimalarial, superior even to the eucalyptus. We are afraid, however, that now-a-days this will, not be attributed to any antiseptic or antimiasmatic oil," but rather to the fact that the tree grows quickly and helps to drain damp soil
SHOOTING IN THE TERAI.
It having been brought to the notice of the Lieutenant-General Commanding the Bengal Army that five soldiers who had been granted shooting passes had become seriously ill from the result of exposure and malaria, it has been ordered that no passes shall be granted to shoot in the part of
381
IN
EUROPE.
Perhaps the fact that for several days or weeks the existence of plague at Oporto was concealed by the Portuguese authorities, will lead critics in their arm-chairs in London to be more sparing in their criticism of plague measures in India. When the plague is far away it is very easy to say what should be done. What proof is there that the disease was introduced into Oporto by means of clothing or cloths from India ? By-the-by it is curious that in few of the recent outbreaks the origin could be traced, e.g., in Alexandria. There is many a Continental town in which plague should be able to find a congenial soil. It is also
reported
Delagoa Bay.
near
THE
INDIAN
MEDICAL
GAZETTE.
published in this Gazette during the past year were quoted no less than 38 times in the last Report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India. Articles
TYPHOID FEVER IN THE FRENCH ARMY.
The Archives de Medicine Navale for June contains an interesting article on enteric fever in the French Army. The garrison at Cherburgh suffered greatly. From November 1808 to January 1899 no less than 628 cases were admitted. The mortality was only 10 per cent. Dr. Nollet inclines to attribute this violent outbreak to the heavy rains in October washing sewage from the fields into the drinking water. The barracks were also in a very inferior hygienic condition. The bacillus of Eberth was said It is somewhat to be found in the floor dust. remarkable after the praises which have been sounded about the Pasteur filter having banished typhoid from the French Army to find Dr. Nollet recommending the abolition of this filter. It is apparently as bad as the old Macnamara
382
THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.
filter of the British barracks. Dr. Nollet confesses the French were infatuated over the Pasteur filter, and "now none so poor as do it We are still, therefore, without a reverence." in spite of all that has been filter satisfactory said and done about the Pasteur one. THE CORONER IN THE MOFUSSAL.'
We call the special attention of those concerned and invite comment upon Major Walsh's We are sure that all Civil article in this issue. will with him that something agree Surgeons should be dona to make this work less disagreeable, we were going to say less repulsive, in the hot weather. When we remember that in several Bengal districts there are 200 or 300 autopsies to be done in a year, the matter becomes one of great importance in the interests of justice. OUR CONTRIBUTORS.
Contributors are reminded that we go to press not later than the 7th of each month, therefore articles intended for publication in next issue should be in hands of the Editor on or, if possible, before the 7th of each month.
[Oct.
1899.
