1 XXI
2 and they, of severe wounds, marasmus, or, dysentery.
3 The jail, with its hospital, is situated outside the city,
4 in one of the filthiest quarters, where all the wells of
5 the neighbourhood contain briny or bitter water ; and
6 notwithstanding all my endeavours and remonstrances,
7 I could not obtain from the government any better nou-
8 rishment for my patients, than the usual jail diet, so that
9 I was obliged, in several cases, to have recourse to a part
10 of the unemployed funds of the public hospital of the
11 Durbar, in order to provide such comforts as were
12 necessary. Taking these circumstances into considera-
13 tion, my management was peculiarly fortunate ; for,
14 during a period of two years from the foundation of
15 that hospital, not a single patient died of an acute
16 disease — such as inflammation, fever, cholera, serpent
17 bites, &c. of which I had many cases ; some of them
18 so dangerous, that I had to visit the patients three or
19 four times a-day. My successor was less fortunate; for,
20 during the first six months after the annexation (from
21 May till October 1849) while I was still in the country,
22 he lost upwards of sixty patients out of 1,000, not to
23 mention those who were dismissed as incurable. I may
24 state, with regard to the latter, that the experiments I
25 made on similar diseases had often been crowned with
26 success. It was thought that the great mortality during
27 these six months was caused by the small and un-
28 healthy situation of the hospital, in consequence of
29 which a larger was built, on the opposite side of the
30 jail. The prisoners received better nourishment, were
31 not so oppressed by hard labor, and were permitted
32 to use tobacco, opium, poppy-heads, hemp, churrus, &c.
33 which had been prohibited. I afterwards learned, that