414 T^he " Oriental Sore " as observed in India. [part ii. 



Europeans ; the use of well water for drinking purposes has been entirely abandoned, 

 and additional care is taken to secure abundant water from a clean portion of the 

 Jumna. No such improvement has been made in the native water-supply : in fact, 

 up to the present time it seems to remain in much the same state as in 1865. The 

 parallelism between the facts regarding the occurrence of the disease nnd the nature 

 of the water-supply appears to be incontestable. The question of the influence of 

 the water-supply will be further discussed in a separate chapter. 



4. — Facts regarding the occurrence of Sores among the city population of Delhi. 

 It is not easy, or even possible, to obtain definite data in regard to this point. 

 It has been affirmed that the disease has diminished very much of late years, and 

 it very probably may have done so in connection with the general sanitary improve- 

 ments of the town — improvements which, it would appear, are in great measure due 

 to the representations made by Lord Mark Kerr. The following statement, giving 

 the number of cases treated at the city dispensary during the years 1873-74-75, 

 shows, however, that the disease has by no means disappeared : 



Nximher of cases of Delhi sm'e treated at the dispensary. 

 1873 . . 95 I 1874 . . 55 | 1875 . . 84 



These numbers are small, but they can be taken as no index of the prevalence 

 of the disease, as the sores are of so chronic and painless a character, and cause 

 so little inconvenience, that often either no treatment at all is adopted, or recourse 

 is had to native remedies and nostrums of various kinds, which are commonly 

 administered by the city barbers. 



The same source of fallacy holds good in regard to attempts at estimating the 

 prevalence of the disease in the small towns and villages in the neighbouring district. 

 That it does occur in such places we satisfied ourselves by personal inspection, and 

 had a practical demonstration of the unsatisfactory nature of the information to be 

 derived from dispensary returns, in encountering cases of the disease in the streets 

 of a town the existence of which were totally unknown to the local native doctor. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE INGREDIENTS IN THE WATER-SUPPLY OF DELHI WHICH APPEAR TO FAVOUR THE 



DEVELOPMENT OF SORES. 



The result of our inquiries, so far as we have hitherto described them, has been to localise 

 the cause productive of " Delhi sores " to the water-supply, and we have now to consider 

 to what extent the microscopical and chemical examination of the water itself justifies 

 such a conclusion — to what extent it possesses peculiar characters. 



The microscopic features of the waters in question may be dismissed with a few 



