[Report on cholera in Calcutta].

  • Macnamara, Nottidge Charles, 1832-1918.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report on cholera in Calcutta]. 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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    It seems to me, therefore, that your influence is urgently called for, through the Home Government, to regulate matters of this kind, for your own, or rather your country's preser- vation, if for no other reason. I cannot help thinking that tables showing the daily death-rate from cholera in Calcutta and other sea-port towns of India, might with advantage be forwarded to the Registrar General in London, by each mail, and that in place of the multitude of reports bearing on the subject of cholera by Sanitary Commissioners, Inspectors of Jails, Dispensaries, Hospitals, and the like, you, and those in this country whose duty it is to regulate these matters, should receive a weekly statement compiled in a tabulated form, with a few remarks on the subject, it necessary, from the Heads of the Indian Medical Service residing at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. I am aware of the fact that in November 1869 the Registrar General requested he might be furnished with weekly telegrams from India re- garding the death-rate in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay; but it seems to me that the Inspec- tor General of Hospitals in each Presidency is the authority who can best furnish information of the kind—at any rate as regards cholera, because he is acquainted with the circumstances of the disease throughout the length and breadth of his Presidency. As a case in poiut. Dr. Hewlett, the Health Officer of Bombay, in his report to the Municipal Authorities, dated 20th October, 1870, page 7, remarks,—“but my information regarding cholera out of Bombay is necessarily most inaccurate. It ought not to be so. As you recollect, some years ago I suggested that Collectors aud other officials might be requested by Government to inform the Health Officer of Bombay of the appearance of cholera in their districts. But this is precisely what I object to; it is creating another head: why not obtain the information re- quired from existing authorities, in place of bothering people to make out duplicate reports ? Nevertheless, I quite see the necessity for information not only reaching Dr. Plewlett, but also the Registrar General, regarding the circumstances of cholera beyond the precincts of the Presidency towns. You can have no conception of the mass of reports now being issued by the various authorities above mentioned, through the Government of India, on cholera and kindred subjects; for instance, I wish to trace out the history of the disease for the year 1868 :—at the close of 1869 a voluminous report on the subject by the Imperial Sanitary Commissioner is issued; about the same time, reports from the Sanitary Com- missioners of the Punjab, Central Provinces, North-West, Bengal, and Burmah, a long report from the Inspector of Jails, Lower Provinces, the Inspector of Dispensaries, etc., etc., begin to overwhelm one. The aggregate weight of these reports issued for the year 1868, bv the newly-created Sanitary Department alone, in the Bengal Presidency, amounts to no less than 131bs., exclusive of jail reports, and those issued by the Indian Medical Department, Despensaries, and so on; whereas the last Army Medical Department Report (British) weighs only lflbs.; this latter contains the Sanitary, Statistical, Medical—in fact the entire Medical History of the British Army in India, and every other part of the world, for the year 1868. Facts of this kind will give you a better idea of the magnitude of the evil I complain of, for one must wade through this 131bs. weight of Sanitary reports, in addition to the others noticed, to collect the history of cholera in this Presidency for a single season, and probably as much more is due from Madras aud Bombay. You have no conception of the labour necessary to work through these ever multiplying reports, and I doubt if the waste of money and time connected with this evil can be corrected in India. The report mania, however, has only recently seized the Medical, or rather newly-created Sanitary Service,