of the Troops at Kurnaul. 63 



miasma, and generate fevers of every type. We coincide in opinion 

 with Dr. Ranken, who has laid it down as an axiom in regard to 

 the production of these fevers, that vegetable substances in a state 

 of decomposition and solution in water, become prejudicial to health, 

 and capable of producing fevers. Water cannot exist on the surface of 

 the earth, in this climate, without admixture with vegetable matter, 

 which, by the instrumentality of heat, is decomposed and converted 

 into a morbific agent. Dr. Ranken, also assumes as an axiom, that 

 wherever a body of water, flowing or stagnant, appears on the surface 

 of the ground in India, it is impregnated with vegetable and animal 

 matter, which the influence of the sun will convert into malaria. 



Receiving this dogma, the whole parade ground lying between the 

 canal on the east, and the jungle on the west, from its level surface 

 and clayey bed, on which water remains for days, and in the rainy 

 season for weeks, becomes one continuous source of miasmatic 

 effluvia ; while the ground to the south-west and to the north of the 

 barracks of the 3rd Dragoons and Horse Artillery, becomes a swamp 

 during the greater part of the rains, and a more dangerous vicinage 

 than the marshy banks of the canal ; for the corps above-mentioned 

 suffered in a greater degree than the European Infantry, and the cases 

 were more malignant and intractable, than those of the European 

 Foot Regiments ; a fact which militates greatly against the opinion, 

 that the canal is the chief, or sole cause of the insalubrity of the station 

 of Kurnaul. 



Another fact before-mentioned and exhibited by the tabular state- 

 ment of the healthiness of the years 1835-6, and their immunity, 

 or freedom, from paroxysmal fevers, together with the coincidence of 

 these years, being remarkably dry ones, proves that the surface water 

 on the parade, is no mean agent in the production of malaria and of 

 malarious fevers. The absence of rain, or its diminished quantity, 

 preventing the generation of marsh effluvia during these years, ac- 

 counts for the absence of fever, and the freedom from sickness of the 

 soldiery. 



But there are yet other sources of malaria, independent of those 

 inherent in the soil and locality, which have been so destructive at 

 Kurnaul ; these are artificial ones originating in the cultivation of 

 rice, jawarree and bajra, crops all requiring irrigation, which is permit- 

 ted around cantonments, and it is said, even within their limits. Irri- 



