96 REPORT—1846. 
for life had been substituted, or was in progress of substitution; and very lengthened 
imprisonments were discouraged. 
Criminal jurisdiction in minor cases appears to be exercised by the superior native 
judges under all the governments. . 
The proportional sentences of death in India contrast very favourably with similar 
sentences in England and Wales, in the corresponding years. In England and 
Wales in the year 
1841...... Prisoners......... 27,760 Sentences of death...... 80 
Re CALLED cccns ade LAGOS. date eee AaB 
WS tS ostts 7. OlttOjcrcssnvecse soo (iffOesescckaaxs Paar A SILh 
1844....... ditto....... stega Boose, CIEEO Ss csp'estese asic senna ee eolll 
Gta wescatavones illo. 202 Motel vs evcccoasezelle 
which gives a per-centage of 0°258, or one sentence of death to every 388 prisoners; 
the proportion in Bengal being one in 2878. The committals to the population in 
England and Wales, in 1841, were one to 619 souls; and in Bengal, in the same 
year, one to 620 souls. 
Statistics of the Government Charitable Dispensaries of India. 
By Lieut.-Colonel Syxrs, F.R.S. 
The chief object of the author was to show the practical good resulting from the 
education afforded in medicine and surgery to young natives of India, principally in 
the Medical College of Calcutta. Young natives, having passed certain prescribed 
examinations, were appointed to the charge of government charitable dispensaries 
benevolently established by the government of India in Bengal and the north-west 
provinces. The dispensaries, seventeen in number, were respectively in charge of 
the native sub-assistant surgeons; but under the control of the civil surgeon of the 
station, or that of the superintending surgeon of the district. Both the superintend- 
ant and the native sub-assistant surgeons were directed to report haif-yearly, for the 
information of government, to the medical board at Calcutta. These reports were 
made in English, and several of the reports of the natives were not distinguishable 
from those of the highly-educated European surgeons, whether in grammatical con- 
struction, technical phraseology, perspicuity in expression, or rational observation. 
Some of the reports embraced the writer’s views upon the drainage and sanatory con- 
dition of towns; the influence of intramural or proximate burial-grounds (Mahome- 
dan) upon public health; the meteorology of the seasons, as influencing disease; the 
superstitions and prejudices of caste in the people, as debarring the people from de- 
riving the full benefit of the dispensaries; upon the use of the dispensaries as schools 
of instruction ;—these, and many other topics, are ably noticed in several of the re- 
ports. All the sub-assistant surgeons use the knife with dexterity and success, am- 
putating limbs, cutting for the stone, couching for cataract, &c.; and some of them 
send drawings of the stones they extract ; others report upon the introduction and use 
of new medicines (unknown to English pharmacy) ; and one of them (Itam Narraen 
Dofs, of Cawnpoor) gives a botanical description, and sends a drawing of a plant (a 
Convolvulus) producing a new medicine, a substitute for rhubarb; others give a che- 
mical analysis of the new medicines they introduce, and sometimes re-analyse 
medicines with metallic bases used by the hakeems or physicians of the country. In 
all, 232 new medicines are brought to notice. The reports are accompanied by tabu- 
lated returns of the diseases treated, arranged under fifty-eight heads, with a column 
of ‘alii morbi,’ which, in spite of the fifty-eight diseases enumerated, is very compre- 
hensive in its character. The returns from the majority of the dispensaries are for 
six half-years, and these Colonel Sykes has arranged, added up, and analysed. The 
results showed that the “‘ House List’ and the ‘‘ Out Patient” practice embraced 
267,456 cases, of which 168,871 were cured, 2417 died, and 96,768 ceased to attend, 
and the results were not known. Colonel Sykes treats in detail of local peculiarities 
in the development of diseases. He concludes his paper with the following observa- 
tions :—* In conclusion, it has been contemptuously said, and is still said, that in case 
the Company’s government in India were swept away, not a monument of its existence 
would remain to attest its former state and power. No doubt the governments that 
have preceded the British in India left sufficient proofs of their existence. The early 
