Observations on the means of preserving the health of troops, by selecting healthy localities for their cantonments / by Edward Balfour ; read by Joseph Hume ... before the Statistical Society of London, on the 19th of May 1845.

Balfour, Edward, 1813-1889.

Date:: [1845]

Credit: Observations on the means of preserving the health of troops, by selecting healthy localities for their cantonments / by Edward Balfour ; read by Joseph Hume ... before the Statistical Society of London, on the 19th of May 1845. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$for comparison. From data furnished by Inspector-general Brooke (Returns from 182G to 1832) we can estimate the probable mortality to which Europeans would be subject if stationed there. The deaths out of 60,954 living in India, amounted to 3,486, or 57 per 1,000, in the following proportions:— Fever - . 15-4 Pectoral complaints 2-5 Liver - 4-2 Bowel - - ditto 18*4 Cholera - 11-5 Miseellaneous ditto 5*0 But from the fact that all endemic and epidemic diseases, and the fourl great scourges of the Europeans in the low country, fever, dysentery, cholera and liver, as a consequence of climate, are unknown, we may safely predict, that the number of deaths, among a body of troops stationed on these hills.; would not be much above the average mortality among the troops in Orea\ Britain ;* and to learn the saving of life that might be effected by forming cantonments there, it is only necessary to examine the returns from neigh- bouring stations for 1842. Ratio of Deaths per 1,000 of Mean Strength. Strength, 1842. < Neilgherries; no exaet data, but supposed) mortality J 20* — Cananore ------ 52-2 613 Bangalore ------ 29- 2,167 Trichinopoly ------ 40-4 420 Arnee and Arcot ----- 56-7 1,551 ' Bellary ------- 94'3 530 “ The importance of the Neilgherry hills,as a central position, may be learne from the fact, that about 4,000 European and 10,000 native troops are dg tributed at Mangalore, Cananore, Palamcottah, Mercara, Trichinopoly aui Bangalore, the principal stations at their base. The distance from tb Neilgherry hills to Calicut is 56 miles; to Cananore 130 ; to Trichinopoly 153 Bangalore 176, and Madras 393. “ The nature of the approaches to the hills affords the greatest facility < access. The Conoor, Goodooloor and Segoor passes, one on the north, the othei on the south and west, are open at all seasons and at all periods of the monsoo; and are praeticable for wheel-carriages; and if the Koondah Ghaut were con pleted, a regiment could, in three or four marches, reach Arricole on tl Beyp ore River, whence it is navigable at all seasons to its embouchure i Calicut, the distance being a little more than 30 miles.” j In the Bombay Presideney, a convalescent station has been formed ; Malcolmpett on the Mahabaleshwur hills, which form a part of the westel chain that stretches from Surat to Cape Comorin, though the hills are a great measure insulated from the surrounding country. The site select( for the position of the sanatorium is in 17° 56' N., and 73° 30' E., 24 mil due east, and at an elevation of 4,500 feet from the ocean, on the seaward ■ westward slope of the mountain. It is thus freely exposed to the influeu of the sea-breeze, while it is protected against the force of the easterly wind On the western side the hills rise precipitously from the Concan, ovi - * • Letter from Surgeon Baikie, m.d., dated 1st May 1840, to the Secretary to the Madras Gove$