Operative surgery in the Calcutta Medical College Hospital : statistics, cases and comments / by Kenneth McLeod.

Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Operative surgery in the Calcutta Medical College Hospital : statistics, cases and comments / by Kenneth McLeod. 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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    CHAP. II. complications and sequelie. Occasionally epidemics of Diseases. malarious fever prostrate aud decimate large and popu- lous districts. Many of them exhibit chronic antemia, enlargement of spleen and liver, diarrhoea and dysentery, set up by repeated attacks of malarious fever. Syphilis is very rife among them, and mercury is too often rashly and excessively administered for its cure. They are not as a rule addicted to spirits, but in the larger villages and towns, more especially in Calcutta and its Vices. suburbs, alcoholic excess is by no means unfrequent, and is becoming more so. Many of them consume opium and hemp to excess, and the use of tobacco and ixm is universal. The better classes are apt to indulge freely in sweetmeats and ghcc (clarified butter), and excessive fatness and diabetes are very common among them. Add to this, infant marriage and often iin- restrained sexual debauchery, and the picture is by no means a bright or promising one as far as disease or operation is concerned. Tiie Bengalee A belief exists that native Indians ai-e remarkably ject of opera- toleraiit of Severe operations. This is true of up- ' country natives, but as far as the inhabitants of Cal- cutta and its neighbourhood are concerned, I am entirely in accord Avith Sir Joseph Tayrer when he writes (Clinical Surgery in India, page 30) : So far from being favourable subjects for surgical operations, I regard them as quite the reverse, and feel assured that to the surgeon who has had the opportunity of treating serious wounds or operations in the rustic native, the difference must be as remarkable as it is discouraging. I might cite other authorities to the same effect. Vital statistics in India are as yet too inaccurate to give any true estimate of the value of life among natives, but the practice of all insurance offices is to demand a higher premium than for Euro- pean lives, which are taxed at a much higher figure than in Europe. The paucity of old men and women among Indian communities is confirmatory of this