know that that is the Acacia dealbataV ’ The reply was, “It is so 
completely different in appearance from what the tree is in its native 
country that I really do not know it.” When I take these things into 
account, as well as other facts resulting from the climate in regard to 
vegetation, I think it puts us in a better position to understand how people 
from this country should be similarly affected by the climate in India. 
Therefore, I hope the few remarks I have made will have some effect in 
leading my hearers to the belief that when our soldiers and officers come 
home pallid and ill from India, their sickness has been brought about by 
something more than mere excess. As long as we are able to maintain India, 
which I hope will be for many generations, this is a point to which I think 
we ought to look. The more we consider the great influence which the 
climate has upon organic nature generally, and the more we apply the 
observations that are thereby presented to us to our own case, the better we 
shall be able to consider this subject in its more rational and scientific aspect. 
Surgeon-Major Park, B.A. — I should like to ask one question. I have 
not served in India myself, but I have seen a great deal of the British 
soldier, and his wife and children, and I should like to know whether there 
are any observations with regard to the effect of rainfall on the health and 
mortality of the soldier. From a personal experience of many parts of the 
world, excepting India, I feel strongly that he is a greatly belied man, and 
if such a Society as this can, by its publications, let the public have the 
views of such men as Dr. Gordon and Sir Joseph Fayrer as to the effects of 
the Indian climate on the soldier and his family, I think it will have a good 
effect. This may appear to be going somewhat wide of the subject of the 
paper, but I think the matter is one well worthy the attention of the 
English people. There is another point on which I should like to put a 
question to those who have served in India, and that is in reference to the 
common remark that three generations exhaust the vitality of the British 
residents in Lower Bengal. I wish to know whether there is any authentic 
record showing that this is the fact or the reverse ? 
Dr. Chevers. — That proposition has been considered by all the medical 
men in India, not merely as to Lower Bengal, but throughout the country, 
except, perhaps, Simla and the high lands and hill sanitaria, which are 
modern places of European residence, scarcely occupied as such for more 
than fifty or sixty years, so that in their case there has not been room for 
observation. But with regard to other places which have been in a great 
measure inhabited by soldiers and their descendants, and where the invalids 
used to be allowed to retire and make themselves comfortable, it has no- 
where been discovered by any medical man that there have been any 
genuine descendants, of unmixed blood, of any European family of the fourth 
generation ; that is, assuming there has been no return to Europe for 
education and improvement of health. If an instance could have been cited 
I am sure one or another of our active inquirers would have certainly 
brought it forward. 
