THE "ORIENTAL SOEE" 



AS OBSEEVED IN INDIA* 

 A REPORT 



BY 



T. E. LEWIS, M.B., and D. D. CUNNINGHAM, M.B. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL REMARKS REGARDING " ORIENTAL SORE : " ITS DELHI FORM. 



The subject of which the present report treats has occupied our attention for several 

 years past, but it was only during the earlier part of the present year that we were 

 able to devote time specially to its study in the locality where it has generally been 

 considered to prevail to a greater extent than any other in India, namely, at Delhi. 

 The complaint has been known in that city for many years, but it was not until 

 after 1857 that special attention was drawn. to it by the large amount of invaliding 

 which it produced amongst the European troops who were stationed there after the 

 mutiny. Since this period the disease has occupied a prominent place in the litera- 

 ture of cutaneous affections under the designations of " Delhi sore," " Delhi boil," 

 or " Delhi ulcer." The Government appointed a Commission, presided over by 

 Dr. John Murray, to report upon the subject in 1864, and subsequent to this 

 numerous medical officers have made special investigations regarding the origin and 

 nature of the sore, foremost among whom? may be mentioned Dr. Alexander Smith 

 and Dr. Joseph Fleming. 



As, however, the literature of the complaint has been very recently lucidly 

 summarised in a joint work by Drs. Tilbury Fox and Farquhar on the " Skin 

 Diseases of India," published under the sanction of the India Office we do not 

 consider it necessary to particularise the various views which have been propounded 

 from time to time regarding the malady, and shall restrict ourselves to giving a 



* Appeared as an Appendix to the Twelfth Anmial Report of the Sanitary Comviissmier with the 

 Govertivwnt of India, 1876. 



