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On the Establishment of an Invalid Depot in the Hivialayah 

 Mountains ; being an Extract from a Letter- addressed to 

 Sir James M^Grjgor^ Director-General of the Army Me- 

 dical Department. By Dr William Burke, Inspector- 

 General of the Hospitals of the King's Troops in India. 

 Communicated by Sir James M^^Geigor. 



f The following document contains a statement of great im- 

 portance to Europeans in Bengal, and even to those who 

 take an interest in the health of our troops and friends in 

 that part of the world. It communicates the account of a dis- 

 trict, with a climate of such a nature as will render it unne- 

 cessary for invalids to seek health in Europe, and thus en- 

 able them to remain in India to finish their period of service. 

 To our troops, the importance of such a climate requires no 

 comment. We understand that a district equally favourable 

 for the recovery of health has been discovered in the Madras 

 Presidency. It is on a table-land thirty miles in extent, in 

 the Neelgherry hills, between the Malabar and Coromandel 

 coasts. To this district, those invalids formerly sent home to 

 Europe are now removed for the recovery of their health. A 

 similar favourably situated spot has been lately met with 

 to the northward of the Bombay Presidency, whither inva- 

 lids are to be sent*]. 



J. HAVE now the pleasure of communicating to you a copy of a 

 document which is very interesting to the service, as confirming 

 all that had been hoped from, and predicted of, the establishing 

 an invalid depot in the Himalayah. By this report of a special 

 committee, of which the superintending surgeon of the district 

 (Merut) was president, the advantages to be derived from i^ 

 are so cvidetit and confirmed, that I should think it will be, or 



• A pamphlet has just been put into our hands, entitled " A brief Dis- 

 sertation on the Climate of the Hill Provinces, as connected with Pathology. 

 By Julius Jeffreys, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of I^ndon, 

 Assistant-Surgeon to the Honourable East India Company,** published at 

 Calcutta in 1824. The author, after an interesting discussion as to the na< 

 ture of the climate in these elevated districts, strongly recommends the send- 

 ing of invalids to the hill provinces, and maintains that their climate is more 

 favourable to Indian invalids than that of £urope. 



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