Annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India.

  • India. Sanitary Commissioner.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/348 (page 16)
    admissions (giving an admission rate of 595 per mille) in 1904 when no such precaution was taken. Quinine prophylaxis (15 grains twice a week) was stopped tentatively for a short period at Ahmedabad and the number of admissions for malaria immediately increased. Lastly, the following striking example of the value of quinine prophylaxis is reported from Kamptee : 500 men of the Royal Scots getting 15 grains of quinine sulphate once a week from 1 st September to 15th November gave 1 7 admissions (equivalent to an admission rate of 34 per mille), while 154 men of the 62nd Battery, Royal Field Artillery, that were not taking quinine regularly gave during the same period 20 admissions (equivalent to 129*8 per mille). At Dum Dum and Dinapore it wras observed that quinine tabloids frequently passed almost unchanged through the alimentary canal ; quinine was subsequently administered in solution only. Treatment by hypodermic or intramuscular injections of quinine—chiefly the bihydrochloride, is pretty generally followed and is recog¬ nised by many as being more rapid and powerful in its action. This method is found valuable in severe or intractable cases, where the results of administration by the mouth are unsatisfactory,^.^, the desired effect not being produced or, the drug not being tolerated. From Mandalay it is reported that a highly neurotic European woman, six months’ pregnant, suffering from malignant tertian fever received an injection of 5 grains of quinine bihydrochloride daily until the fever was checked, without the production of any untoward effect on the uterus. In some cases (Dum Dum), where quinine by the mouth was not retained, good results were obtained by giving quinine in rectal injections. As regards special anti-mosquito measures, the great decrease in pre¬ valence of malaria at Mian Mir is attributed chiefly to the prevention of canal irrigation water from running through cantonments and that at Jubbulpore to the excellent results of the extensive surface drainage carried out near the barracks by the Royal Engineers in 1904. From Peshawar, on the other hand, it is reported that two regiments whose barracks were very near the military grass farm wrere especially affected during irrigation of this land and had double the admission rate for malaria of the other regiments not so exposed. The increase of prevalence at Thayetmyo is attributed to the flooding of the country by the Irrawaddy and that at Dum Dum to the neighbouring rice-fields. In Dinapore, however, although anti-mosquito measures were heavily handicapped by the presence of rice-fields all round cantonments, the prevalence of malaria among European troops is less than half, and that among Native troops less than a quarter of what it was in 1904. At this station 10 grains of quinine were given under strict supervision on three consecutive days in the week, at first in tabloid form but latterly, after evidence of the relative insolubility of these preparations, in solution. The decrease of malaria cannot in this instance be accounted for by a change in diagnostic procedure, as admissions on account of simple continued fever have also fallen from 53 in 1904 to 7 in 1905. Consequently, the good results obtained in this station must be attributed principally to quinine prophy¬ laxis and possibly to a less extent to the anti-mosquito measures undertaken. Anti-mosquito operations were carried on methodically and enthusiastically in a number of stations with good results, but in some stations such measures were regarded as impracticable owing to the difficulty of dealing with rice-fields, irrigation canals and other large masses of water in and around cantonments, while in others the efforts of the military authorities were to a great extent rendered futile by the mosquito breeding grounds near cantonments being under the