Official report on the medical topography and climate of Calcutta : with brief notices of its prevalent diseases, endemic and epidemic / by James Ranald Martin.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Official report on the medical topography and climate of Calcutta : with brief notices of its prevalent diseases, endemic and epidemic / by James Ranald Martin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    already detailed as belonging to the houses of Chowringhee ; viz. want of sufficient elevation, or arches, to the basements, a questionable aspect, and want of western verandahs. APPENDIX No. 2. It may appear to some persons that in what is stated at page 215 I have over-rated the influence on public health, of general knowledge and improved habits of life. I therefore quote the following observations by Tennant, made about 40 years ago, on the spot, with ample means of knowing the truth, and without any personal bias, or theory to support. They accord remarkably with those of Fodere, when he says—“ J’ai voyage, j’ai liabite a dessein differens pays ; j’ai medite sur la condition des homines dans les diverses circonstances de la vie ; j’ai vu qu’il etoit au pouvoir des gouvernmens de leur faire infiniment plus de bien que tous les livres de medicine ensemble.” “ In the wealthy departments of France, life is, on the average, protracted twelve and a half years beyond its course in those which are poor.”—Hawkins :■—So much for the influence of habits of life. “ MODE OF LIVING AMONG THE MILITARY AND CIVIL OFFICERS. “ Ccnvnpore, Jan. 1798. “ The mode of living in this part of India has, within the last ten or fifteen years, undergone a very great alteration. Before that period the civil and military servants of the Company of the first rank were lodged in bungalows worse than those of a Subaltern of the present day : as the practice of feeding beef, mutton, pork, and poultry, was not then introduced, their tables were poorly supplied ; even vegetables were not to be had ; though an article indispensably necessary in this climate. These inconveniences were aggravated by a constant routine of irregu- larity. After dinner it was the usual custom to go to sleep, in the hot- test time of the day ; from this every party was awakened in the even- ing, to partake of a supper, which protracted a drunken sederunt till a late hour of the next morning. “ Amidst continued repletion, and frequent irregularity, the climate operated with fatal influence ; for trying as Bengal still is to almost