1865.1 On the Boksas of Bijnour. 169 



dunghill and affords by no means a pleasant promenade even in the 

 cold weather. With our modern views as to the effect that filth and 

 close, foul air have on health, we need hardly wonder that the Gotiya 

 is more subject to sickness than the Boksa, or that the latter attri- 

 butes the greater liability of his neighbour to fever to the state of 

 uncleanliness in which he lives. 



In the course of my inquiries among the Boksas, it became evident 

 that there is a very strong scorbutic tendency amongst them, of which 

 the state of the gums affords a fair indication. In this pre-eminently 

 statistical age, it would have been more satisfactory had I been able 

 to give a good many figures bearing upon this point, but my attention 

 became directed to it so late that I can speak positively as to the state 

 of the gums in ten men only. These were taken promiscuously, and 

 the gums of nine were more or less livid, spongy and hemorrhagic, 

 the one exception, with sound gums, being a robust young lad. In 

 order to have some ground for comparison, the gums of several scores 

 of prisoners in the Bijnour jail were subsequently examined on 

 admission and at the time of discharge, and, with the exception of 2 

 (or 3) old thin-blooded men, and one lad who had been subject to 

 considerable privation ere admission, the gums of all were healthy. 

 These were sound even in the case of several who had been for some 

 months on the havalat diet, which consists of only 16 oz., of flour 

 with 4 oz., of pulse or 10 oz. of fresh vegetables. 



The hasmorrhagic tendency of the Boksas appears to be shewn also 

 by the great frequency and fatality of dysenteric affections among 

 them. Of seven deaths, the causes of which were at various times, and 

 without special design, detailed to me, five were from simple dysentery 

 or diarrhoea, and two from dysenteric complications of fever and small- 

 pox (respectively). 



It may be a question whether the malaria, though it does not 

 cause fever among the Boksas to anything like the extent which 

 might be expected, has not something to do with the lowering of the 

 system indicated by these purpuric or scorbutic symptoms, but I do 

 not think we have any cause for it beyond the wretched food on which 

 many of these people live. It has been seen, that the area of land 

 tilled in a village is generally much less than would provide a suffi- 

 cient quantity of cereals for the inhabitants under any system of culti- 

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