Army sanitation : a course of lectures delivered at the school of military engineering, Chatham / by Sir Douglas Galton.

  • Galton, Douglas (Douglas Strutt), Sir, 1822-1899.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Army sanitation : a course of lectures delivered at the school of military engineering, Chatham / by Sir Douglas Galton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    containing thousands of people by what may be termed mis- directed engineering operations. The Kala Nuddee, which takes its origin in the Damoodah River, and joins the Hooghly at Moogra, had its entrance closed, some thirty years ago, by a native zemindar, in order to turn the water over his own land, by which means the water supply, drainage, and irrigation of this district had been cut off. The banks of the Kala Nuddee for a distance of forty miles are densely populated, but the villages had few tanks, and depended for their drinking water on the stagnant and putrid pools in the bed of the nullah, the con- dition of which was filthy in the extreme, cremation being prac- tised on the banks, and the channel itself used for the reception of all the refuse of the neighbourhood. Fever and other forms of disease prevailed to an enormous extent over the whole dis- trict. The continued prevalence of disease directed the attention of the sanitary commissioner to this district, and in consequence of his representations the entrance of the Kala Nuddee was reopened in 187*2, and a clear stream of from forty to eighty feet wide, and forty miles in length, was allowed to flow through the nullah, which provided for irrigation as well as for domestic purposes. The result was a great decrease of sickness in the district. But the most remarkable part of the story is that, after this wonderful improvement had been effected, the engineers left in charge were apparently ignorant of the relation which these works bore to the health of the district ; and, to save a few hundred rupees a year, they have allowed the channel thus formed to silt up, and fever has reappeared. Algeria, perhaps, offers some of the best illustrations of the manner in which engineering operations have remedied the evils of the proximity of marshes. Bona stands on a hill overlooking the sea; a plain of a deep rich vegetable soil extends southwards from it, but little raised above the sea level. The plain receives not only the rainfall which falls on its surface, but the water from adjacent mountains, and is consequently saturated with wet. The population living on and near this plain suffered intensely from fever; entire regiments were destroyed by death and disease. It was at last determined to drain the plain. The result of this work was an immediate reduction of the sick and death rate. Fondouc, in Algeria, is situated on sloping ground, imme- diately above the marshy plain of the Mitidja; mountain ranges rise immediately behind it. It was first occupied in 1841, and in the succeeding year half the population was swept away by fevers and dysentery. During the first twenty years the mortality was 10 per cent. The surrounding marsh has since been drained and cultivated, and the mortality is 20 per 1,000. In the Northern Doab districts in the North-West Provinces of India, the excessive fever mortality for which these districts were noted has been mitigated by extensive drainage works, by means of which the water which formerly stagnated in the land is now led away by continuously flowing streams. On the other hand, if a district is too dry, the engineer may