John McCosh

“ People born and bred in a malarial country become inured to it, and enjoy comparatively good health, where new comers would suffer. The Garrows, one of the hill tribes, on the frontier of Assam, are the most powerful, athletic race I have seen in India, yet they inhabit a country, into the interior of which no European could penetrate without the certainty of a most dangerous fever. In some parts of South America, a slave escapes from bondage, and finds a safe asylum in some well-known deadly jungle, knowing that his master would follow him thither at the risk of his life. ”

“ MALARIA.— It is a generally received opinion that the greater proportion of the diseases of India is the consequence of malaria generated in the decomposition of animal or vegetable matter: that a certain ethereal essence, whether a gas or a vapour, a film or an aroma, is evolved by such substances, when exposed to putrefaction in moist high temperatures, which has the property of causing fever when inhaled, or absorbed externally. The germs of disease are so ethereal, that they have hitherto baffled all art and all science to identify them, either in air, earth, or water. ”

“ It does not seem materially to shorten the span of life, but to confine its ravages to the extremities; lopping off joint after joint, toe after toe, and finger after finger, and eventually the entire hand or foot, while the outcast victims drag out a lengthened existence in loathsome misery. It is firmly believed by the natives to be hereditary as well as contagious; no one thinks of inter-marrying with a leper, and contact of any sort is abhorred.
7. CHOLERA.—Cholera is the most alarming disease, and when epidemic, its ravages are like those of a destroying angel. ”

“ We can separate the component parts of all three, and bottle them up like May-dew; we can handle electricity, galvanism, and magnetism as we would material agents; we can divide the light of day into its constituent elements, and convert the red, and the yellow, ray into peculiar uses,—and the violet ray into a photographic pencil, far surpassing in truth, the paintings of the most able artists. ”

“ CALCULUS.—This was at one time thought to be a rare disease amongst natives but late experience shows it to be as prevalent as in temperate zones. Many civil surgeons have operated in hundreds of cases within their own districts, and with remarkable success. Even natives, uneducated at any school, ignorant of anatomy and self-taught, operate with a degree of success that surprises the educated practitioner. ”

“ An army may encamp with safety on the sea-shore of a pestilential island during one monsoon, when the wind is from the sea, but if the monsoon change, and blow from the interior, sickness invariably follows. Miasma loses its property of producing fever in its progress on the wind, as if it became too volatile to have effect. Localities within one mile of a marsh may be feverish, whereas others five miles distant may be healthy. ”

“ That Calcutta is so much more healthy now than it was in the olden time, when the survivors held a jubilee when the sickly season was over, is chiefly owing to the drainage of its marshes and jeels, and learing away jungle;and that cultivated lands may be depopulated even by marine inundation, was manifested in the awful mortality from fever that followed the irruption of the sea into the districts of Balasore, and the twenty-four pergannahs, sweeping away thousands and thousands of the population. ”

“ Hence cantonments suddenly established on the site of a cut down forest are at first very unhealthy, of which the new cantonment of Namean, on the Irrawaddy, is a noted example, and has been abandoned in consequence of its unhealthiness, yet Namean seemed to possess all the advantages desirable in a cantonment. It is ascertained that all the types of intermittent fever may be occasioned by the same exposure to miasma; four persons may pass through a jungle at the same time: one may get a quotidien fever ”

“ The hospital became crowded to excess;two, three, or four poor fellows were carried in every hour; and so rapid was the progress of the disease, that many died a few hours after they were attacked. Many of the followers, rather than run the risk of living longer in camp, fled into the forests, and attempted to find their way home;running the risk of meeting upon their path the numerous beasts of prey, and the enemy, as savage as merciless, and still more dangerous than the wild beasts, through many a weary mile. ”

“ A belt of high trees intervening between a marsh and a town, is known to afford a similar exemption to the inhabitants. Numerous instances exist of towns becoming suddenly unhealthy after the cutting down of such high belts of trees, as well as other instances of towns being protected by having a grove of trees planted between them and the marsh. Miasma seems capable of accumulation in the soil, and the breaking in of old forest land is generally attended with much sickness. ”

“ So strong is their conviction of the Mahamurry being contagious, that acordon is immediately made round a community suffering from the disease, and if one of their number were to venture beyond the boundary, he would be stoned to death. ”

“ As soon as decomposition takes place, and the development of gas, the body rises to the surface, and drops down the stream for hundreds of miles, tainting the atmosphere as it floats along, till maceration and birds of prey strip the flesh from the bones, and cause it to sink to rise no more. ”

“ As soon as the disease manifests itself, the people leave the place, and take up their temporary abode a considerable distance from the infected village; the dead are left unburied where they fall, the sick deserted where they lie, nor do the survivors venture back to their homes for months and years, when decomposition and time is supposed to have purified the infected spot. ”

“ For nearly a month it assumed the sporadic form, selecting for its victims the camp followers, and the weaker Sepoys only. Though a good many of those attacked were carried off, still it did not excite much alarm; and we hoped,by constant change of ground, and the cold weather increasing, to leave it somewhere behind. However, after we had penetrated about twelve marches into the interior of the enemy's country, it burst out at Luckipore with all the violence of an epidemic, and raged for several days with most appalling mortality. ”

“ If the ditches of Fort William were allowed to remain filled with stagnant water, and become a field for the study of reeds and rushes, its present healthy character would soon leave it, and were the numerous tanks throughout Calcutta left to nature, the consequences on the public health would be calamitous.
Things are bad enough as they are. Calcutta is probably the worst drained city in the British dominions ”

“ Scrofula is a rare disease amongst the natives, as is also phthisis; and it is generally allowed that India is very favourable to Europeans affected with these diseases. Elephantiasis,leprosy, hydrocele, are common; syphilis and gonorrhæa are prevalent every where.
9. MAHAMURRY.—It is very remarkable, that in the Himmalayah mountains, especially in Kumaon, at elevations of from five to seven thousand feet, a disease frequently becomes epidemic with most of the characteristics,and all the fatality of plague, and known there by the name of Mahamurry, or the Great Mortality. ”

“ All water, to remain wholesome must be in a continued state of circulation; agitation is not enough, and no one can taste water that has stood in a glass for a week unmoved and unchanged, especially in a hot climate without being convinced of the truth of the theory. Hence also the reason why the months of August,September, and October are so unhealthy. In these months the periodical floods are subsiding ”

“ Landholders frequently take advantage of their being seasoned to marshy situations, renting their farms at a very low rate, when a succession of casualties to new coiners has prevented people in general from having anything to do with such supposed unlucky spots. ”

“ Though the Hindoos profess to burn the bodies of the dead, and throw the ashes into the sacred Ganges, or any of its million branches, yet the poorer classes either cannot afford fuel for this purpose, or do not incinerate. ”