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Such a scheme would afford a grand opportunity of laying out a model
station, and I am confident its establishment would in a very few years tell most
favourably on the health of the Bombay Army.
For the northern division of the Army and for the troops in Rájputána
Mount Abu could be utilized; but the recent outbreak of enteric fever at that
station teaches us in the most forcible language that without due observance of
sanitary principles the very healthiest site must infallibly, by their neglect,
be followed by the outbreak of preventible disease.
Asirgarh, too, is a most valuable small hill station for the troops at Mhow.
The next best plan after hill stations would be selected stations in the plains.
From the tables given in the Mhow report it is seen that Nasirabad, Karáchi,
Neemuch and Ahmedabad have an exceptionally high rate of admissions from
enteric fever. At Mhow, Sátára, Indore, Baroda and Deesa there is also a high
admission rate. I cannot therefore but think that regiments on first arrival
in this country should not be sent to any of the above stations until the disease-
producing causes have been removed. It would surely be the wiser course to
let them become acclimatized in the most healthy stations before proceeding to
an unhealthy one.
Judging by the admission and death-rate of the 10 years, Belgaum is by
far the healthiest station in the Bombay Command. In fact although there was
not the lowest death-rate from enteric fever, yet there was the lowest death-rate
from all causes in it during the 10 years of all the stations in India in the plains.
Next to Belgaum comes Ahmednagar.
The enteric fever rate is indeed slightly higher at Ahmednagar than at
Poona and Kirkee and Hyderabad in Sind, but the admission rate from all causes
and the death-rate in it is far lower. If a newly arrived regiment must be
quartered at Poona, it should be located in the Wanowri Barracks and not at
Ghorepuri.
Bombay has the lowest rate of all the stations for admissions from enteric
fever, and although the admission rate from all causes is very high and the death-
rate is also high, yet these results are caused by the number of convalescents
and invalids who pass through the depôt; but as the Regiment at Colába furnishes
detachments to Baroda, Ahmedabad and Deesa, I strongly recommend that if
not sent to the hills newly arrived regiments be sent to Belgaum or Ahmednagar.
Regarding the action required in stations I can only say it is my most
firm conviction that very much of the sickness from which British soldiers
in India suffer is not produced by climate (although I fully admit this to
be one of the predisposing causes), but disease in this country is in my opinion
to a very great extent the result of local insanitary conditions which, if removed,
would enable the men to enjoy as good health as they now do in the West Indies,
" where, in some stations, e. g., Trinidad and Barbadoes, the sickness and mortality
among the European soldiers are actually less than on home service in years
which have no yellow fever."-Parkes.
It must not be thought that I do not fully recognize the great advance in
sanitary matters that has been effected during the last 25 years. Thanks to the
Royal Sanitary Commission, the eyes of Government were opened to the un-
satisfactory state of the Army and great improvements have taken place. Nor
do I ignore the great and unceasing care that is taken in every regiment and
station to enforce cleanliness in every way possible with existing means. The
local causes I refer to are for the most part beyond the power of officers
commanding stations to remedy. For example, in India such a thing as the under-
draining of a site previously to habitation is never even thought of, and yet there
is no country in the world where such action is more required. Major Galton,
late R. E., in his excellent work recently published and entitled "Healthy
Dwellings", says: "The condition which more than any other governs the
healthiness of the soil is the relation which the ground air or air in the soil
bears to the ground water, that is to say, the presence or absence of moisture in
the soil"; and, again, "If the ground is to be permanently occupied, not only the
area to be built on, but an area extending to probably 100 yards round it on