1865.] 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. 8 
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 gumsin 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 Bbijnour 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 havaldé diet, which consists of only 16 oz., of flour 
with 4 oz., of pulse or 10 oz, of fresh vegetables, 
The hemorrhagic 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 lever and small- 
pox (respectively). 
It may bea 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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