XXIV. 



outbreaks, and as a general rule the Shervaroy fever is not of a severe 

 type and is easily amenable to treatment. 



"Assistant-Surgeon W. R. Cornish, Secretary to the Principal 

 Inspector General Medical Department, who inquired minutely into 

 the subject during his visit in 1861, is of opinion that the Shervaroy 

 fever, when it does occur, is quite as much under control of medicine 

 as the same form of disease elsewhere. 



" Climate suitable for Invalids.— -It is not improbable that some 

 forms of disease, which are aggravated by the Nielgherry climate, 

 may be treated with benefit on the Shervaroy Hills, such as rheu- 

 matism, chronic affection of the liver, bowels, air passages, &c. It is 

 not however to invalids suffering from organic disease that our 

 mountain climates hold out much ground of hope; but rather to 

 those who are simply exhausted in mind and body from prolonged 

 exposure to a high temperature in a low country, and who need rest 

 from work and a cooler air to breathe. These are the cases which 

 benefit in a remarkable degree from a short residence on the Sher- 

 varoys. 



" Admitting the full force of the objection that the hills are occa- 

 sionally malarious, it is no less certain that they are free from many 

 of those sources of disease which abound in the plains. Malignant 

 cholera and dysentery destroy one-half of those who die in our 

 European armies located on the plains, ' fevers ' on the other hand, 

 do not cause more than one-tenth of the whole mortality. There 

 can be no question that where a choice of evils is to be had it is 

 best to adopt the minor one. Our statistics show that the mortality 

 from fevers, including the 'continued' and ' typhoid' varieties in the 

 Madras Presidency, do not exceed one per cent. ; whereas of every 

 two Europeans attacked by the cholera-poison, one dies, and of every 

 100 cases of dysentery, seven prove fatal." 



" The Shervaroy Hills have as yet enjoyed an immunity from 

 cholera, and it is evident that with due attention to sanitation, this 

 terrible pest can never obtain a footing. Its germs have, as before 

 shown, been frequently introduced, but the conditions necessary to 

 their development have as yet been wanting. Dysentery, hepatitis, 



