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REPORT ON THE SICKNESS AND MORTALITY OF THE EUROPEAN ARMY

Statement contrasting the sickness and mortality of the European Troops in the different
provincial areas of the Bengal Presidency during the ten-year periods 1860-69 and 1870-79.

The death-rates have thus fallen in each of the provincial areas: in the Punjab
only has there been an increase in the admission and daily sick-rates.

   Decrease in the admission and death-rates
greater in some provincial areas than in others.

       5. Although the mortality has fallen in all the provincial areas,the diminu-
tion has been much greater in some than
in others. With the exception of the hill
stations, the death and daily sick-rates in
the Punjab during the period 1860-69 were lower than in any of the other pro-
vincial areas, and only two provinces had a lower admission-rate. During the
last ten-year period, on the other hand, the Punjab had the highest admission
and death-rates, and, next to the Gangetic Provinces and Oudh, it had the
highest daily sick-rate. Bengal Proper, again, which, during the period
1860-69, had, next to Agra and Central India, the highest death-rate, during
the period 1870-79 had a very much lower death-rate than any of the other
provincial areas in the plains. This death-rate was indeed but little in excess of
that in the hill stations. Its daily sick and admission-rates were also lower than
those of the other provinces in the plains. This diminution in the sickness and
mortality among the troops in Bengal Proper is principally due to the great im-
provement that has taken place in the health of the men stationed at Fort Wil-
liam. Nearly one-half of the European troops of Bengal Proper are cantoned
in that fortress, and there the average death-rate has fallen from 25.19 to 10.78
per 1,000. The health of the troops stationed in Dum-Dum and Barrackpore
has also, however, considerably improved during the last ten years. The troops
stationed in Agra and Central India have also enjoyed much better health
during the ten years 1870-79 than they did during the former ten-year period.
The death-rate of that provincial area is not half so high as it was during
1860-69, and the admission and daily sick-rates have also fallen very consider-
ably. In the Gangetic Provinces, in Oudh, and also in Meerut and Rohilcund,
a marked improvement has taken place, but not in the same proportion as in
Bengal Proper and in Agra and Central India.

Diminution in the death-rate in the Bengal Pre-
sidency not gradual from year to year.

       6. Although the average mortality of the Bengal Presidency for the ten-
year period 1870-79 is much less than that
for the ten-year period immediately pre-
ceding it, the improvement has not been gradual from year to year. The
death-rate of 1879, the highest of any year during the period, was 44.15 per
1,000. This high mortality was partly due to the severe epidemic of cholera
which in that year caused a mortality of 16.18 per 1,000, and partly to the
excessive mortality that occurred among the troops in Afghanistan. During that
year 9,500 of the men belonging to the Bengal Army were on active service in