Medical reports selected by the Medical Board : from the records of their office, and published under the sanction of government.

  • Madras (India). Medical Board.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reports selected by the Medical Board : from the records of their office, and published under the sanction of government. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/464 (page 13)
    12 o’clock. Wheat flour lb. 1, Dholl, oz- 8, Sometimes Meat oz. 4, Vegetable 1 pice, Ghee 4 oz, Mussauls, Chillies, Saffron, Cummin seeds, Lime 1, Milk lb- 1. Rajpoot Officers. 8 P. M. Rice lb- Milk lb. 1, Sugar oz. 4. -as CJ * & rG CO a CO 4-> G o G K».3 c »- CIS ,o ci v C 3 O E- ^ o o a> (3 as « -T3 3 as All the diets here noted are tolerably well suited to keep a man in health, except perhaps the Malabar dietary, which is very poor in quality. Ihe M^ahomedan and Rajpoot diets are well supplied with phosphatic matter while those of the Malabars and Gentoos are so deficient in materials capable of affording an adequate supply of earthy phosphates, that one might safely predicate, merely from an inspection of these tables, that those classes will be found to be most liable to fever.* In their diets every tissue but the osseous and nerv- ous is supplied with a sufficiency of its appropriate constitu- ents, and nutritive deposits are ensured to the skin, muscle, adipose tissue, &c., without a corresponding nutrition of the nervous substance. This daily addition to the general peri- phery of the body without a corresponding daily repair of the nervous tissue, increase of bulk without the attainment of proportionate nervous material, appears to me to be a common cause of ephemeral and intermittent fevers in the generality of Hindoos in the south of India. The nervous system of those who eat rice to the ex- clusion of a more highly phosphatized diet is seldom capa- ble of any sustained effort. Their skeletons are deficient in earthy matter, as is shown by the great frequency of lateral curvature of the spine among those who are sub- jected to medical examination for enlistment, and their blood • Vide remarks at the end of this report.-- A. L.