544 OF RESPIRATION. 



double the average of the whole presidency, and more than double that of the 

 remainder of the stations. Now the complaints made year after year, by the 

 medical officers of the troops which have been successively quartered at this 

 station, leave no room for doubt as to the chief cause of this excess ; for the 

 regiments of the line quartered at Secunderabad have been always crowded in 

 barracks quite insufficient for their accommodation, one-third of the men having 

 been obliged to sleep in the verandahs, and the remainder getting by no means 

 a due allowance of fresh air; whilst, on the other hand, the officers of these 

 very regiments, who are better accommodated, and the detachment of artillery 

 quartered in more roomy barracks, at no great distance, have never participated 

 in this unusual mortality, thereby clearly showing the absence of any special 

 causes of disease at this station, which might not be easily removed. 1 The 

 Barrackpore station, in the Bengal command, is even worse than the foregoing, 

 for every regiment quartered there seems to suffer an almost complete decimation 

 annually. Yet there is ample evidence that here also the chief fault lies in the 

 barrack accommodation. But one of the most terrible instances of the continu- 

 ance of a high rate of mortality, which is almost entirely attributable to an in- 

 sufficient supply of air, is that which is furnished by the jails under British 

 control in India. In these are usually confined no fewer than 40,000 prisoners, 

 chiefly natives ; and the average annual mortality of the whole was recently 10 

 per cent., rising in some cases to 26 per cent., or more than one in four. This 

 is easily accounted for, when it is known that in no case is there an allowance 

 of more than 300 cubic feet of air-space for each individual, whilst in some 

 instances 70 cubic feet is the miserable average ! 3 



583. One more set of cases will be cited, as showing the marked effect of the 

 habitual respiration of a contaminated atmosphere, not merely in engendering 

 a liability to zymotic disease, but in directly producing a special form of infan- 

 tile disease, of the most fearful nature. The dwellings of the great bulk of the 

 population of Iceland seem as if constructed for the express purpose of poison- 

 ing the air which they contain. They are small and low, without any direct 

 provision for ventilation, the door serving alike as window and chimney ; the 

 walls and roof let in the rain, which the floor, chiefly composed of hardened 

 sheep-dung, sucks up ; the same room generally serves for all the uses of the 

 whole family, and not only for the human part of it, but frequently also for the 

 sheep, which are thus housed during the severer part of the winter. The fuel 

 employed in the country districts chiefly consists of cow-dung and sheep-dung, 

 caked and dried; and near the sea-coast, of the bones and refuse of fish and 

 sea-fowl ; producing a stench, which, to those unaccustomed to it, is completely 

 insupportable. In addition to this, it may be mentioned that the people are 

 noted for their extreme want of personal cleanliness; the same garments (chiefly of 

 black flannel) being worn for months without being even taken off at night. Such 

 an assemblage of unfavorable conditions, combined with the cold damp nature 

 of the climate, might have been expected to induc^ tubercular diseases of various 

 kinds ; but from these the Icelanders appear to enjoy a special exemption ( 404, 



1 It is a remarkable confirmation of the view formerly stated (g 411), as to the tendency 

 of the habitual use of Alcoholic liquors to induce a " fermentible" condition of the blood, 

 by obstructing the elimination of effete matters by the respiratory process ($ 5G4, i), that 

 when the 84th Regt., which is distinguished for its sobriety, was quartered at Secunderabad 

 in 1847-8, it lost only 39 men out of 1139, or 34.2 per 1000, the average mortality of the 

 other stations in the Presidency being about the same as usual. On the other hand, the 

 63d Regt., which was far from deserving a reputation for temperance, had lost 73 men 

 during the first nine months of the preceding year, or at the rate of 78.8 per 1000 during 

 the entire year. All the facts here stated in regard to Secunderabad, have been obtained 

 by the Author direct from the Army Medical Returns. 



2 Dr. Mackinnon's "Treatise on the Public Health, &c., of Bengal," Cawnpore, 1848, 

 Chap. 1. 



