Report to the London School of Tropical Medicine on investigations on dysentery in Fiji during the year 1910 / by P.H. Bahr.

  • Manson-Bahr, Sir Philip Heinrich, 1881-1966.
Date:
1912
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report to the London School of Tropical Medicine on investigations on dysentery in Fiji during the year 1910 / by P.H. Bahr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    DYSENTERY IN FIJI DURING THE YEAR 1910. I. (a)—Introductory. This paper embodies the results of thirteen months' study of dysentery in Fiji. For this purpose the author was appointed by the Committee of the London School of Tropical Medicine. A grant of £500 was placed at the disposal of the Committee by the generosity of Lord Sheffield. This was supplemented by a further sum of £300, provided by E. W. Blessig, Esq., of Bletchingley, Surrey, for the provision of skilled laboratory assistance. A report on researches on filariasis made concurrently has already appeared. I do not propose to describe fully the local hygienic and sanitary conditions obtaining in these islands, as those have already been dealt with at some length in the report referred to. Fiji consists of a group of 250 islands, many of which are uninhabited, and which in the aggregate approximate in area the size of Wales. The three larger islands only concern us here. These are mainly devoted to sugar, coconut and banana plantations. The population of the group comprises over 3,000 Europeans, 87,000 Fijians, 35,000 Indians and 3,000 Solomon Islanders. The two latter races are imported as labour coolies for work on the plantations, for which the native Fijian is unsuited It is amongst these immigrants that the scourge of dysentery is most prevalent. Suva, the capital, is situated on Vitilevu, the largest island of the group. It has a population of over 1,000 Europeans, and a fluctuating population of natives and coloured immigrants of three or four times that number. My researches were carried out principally in the Colonial Hospital in Suva. The climate is cool for the Tropics, and remarkably even throughout the year. The highest temperature recorded in 1910 was 96° F. in February, the lowest 61° F. in July. The rainfall is a large one, and is greatest in the hot months, November to March. In Suva it averages over 110 ins. per annum. My opportunities for investigating the local dysentery were greatly enhanced by the Fijian Government, which not only contributed a monetary grant of £100 for this purpose, but also appointed me pathologist to the Hospital at Suva and a temporary medical officer of the Colony. The necessary apparatus was brought out from England, and a laboratory was installed in the verandah of a house which I rented. By the kindness of the Chief Medical Officer, the Hon. G. W. A. Lynch, I was permitted to conduct investigations on the patients under his care, and, further,