62 On the Sickness and Mortality 



Dragoon stables, is their parade ground. To the west, are the 

 jungle, and pools, already mentioned. 



The soil is argillaceous and retentive of moisture. To this, and 

 the absence of drainage, is to be attributed the conversion of the 

 parade ground, during the rains, into a swamp or jheel of water. 



The close alliance of the several forms of intermittent and remit- 

 tent fevers, from their ready gradation into each other, is not better 

 known, than their unity of causation, viz., — terrestrial, or miasmatic 

 exhalations. 



A reference to the plan of Kurnaul will shew, how abundant are 

 the sources of miasmatic exhalations, within and without the limits of 

 that cantonment. To the north-east, is a large jheel about a 

 mile and a half from cantonments ; south of that, or eastward of, 

 and in the immediate vicinity of the officers' bungalows and barracks 

 of the European Infantry, are the oozy banks of the canal, over 

 which the water finds its way into the plain between the canal and 

 the residences of both officers and men. A remark of Surgeon 

 W. Mitchelson, points out how very prejudicial this must be to the 

 health of the inmates, and the close connection between the prevail- 

 ing sickness, and paludal exhalations, arising in the vicinity of the 

 canal: — he says, that of the officers of the H. C. 1st European 

 Regiment living in the bungalows in that locality, there was scarce 

 one escaped an attack of the prevalent sickness. 



Further south and due east of the parade ground, there are several 

 fields under cultivation, close to, and almost within the limits of the 

 cantonments, in which are grown crops of rice, jawarree and bajra, all of 

 which require and are subjected to frequent irrigation from the canal ; 

 these undisputedly have a prejudical effect on the health, and may 

 account for the occurrence of intermittent and remittent fevers, during 

 the hot weather. 



The whole range of the westward boundary, are the remains of jun- 

 gle, interspersed with jheels and tanks, which afford, as ample a 

 source for the origin of these miasmatic fevers, as the canal on the 

 east flank. 



But it is not jheels or swamps alone, which afford origin to mias- 

 matic exhalations ; large bodies of surface water exposed to the solar 

 rays in a tropical climate, are undoubtedly very fertile sources of 



