Triennial report on the hospitals and dispensaries in Burma.

  • Burma.
Date:
[1919]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Triennial report on the hospitals and dispensaries in Burma. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/62 (page 8)
    TRIENNIAL REPORT ON THE HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES IN BURMA FOR THE YEARS 1*17—1*. these two diseases. In fact those parts of the country which suffer most from Malaria, suffer least from dysentery. The Shan States, Chin Hills, Mandalay and Arakan Divisions show only about one per cent, of admissions for Dysentery, while the Lower Burma Divisions average 2^4 and Rangoon Town heads the list with 4*1. The central divisions; Sagaing, Meiktila and Magwe, stand midway between the two, having less dysentery than Lower Burma, but more than the Shan States, etc. The number of deaths in hospitals from dysentery was 389 or 14*17 per cent, of the admissions and the mortality rate shows a tendency to increase of recent years. Cholera.—One thousand two hundred and seventy-five cases of cholera were admitted with a death-rate of 51 ‘29 per cent, during the triennium. More than two-thirds of these cases were In i9i9;Akyab, Rangoon and Myaungmya showing the largest number of admissions. The death-rate is heavy, but capable of being considerably reduced by the systematic adoption of Sir Leonard Roger’s method of treatment. The Civil Surgeon, Myaungmya, reports nine recoveries out of ten cases treated. The existing conditions for the segregation of infectious disease, before alluded to, militate against the prompt use of the method. Enteric Fever.—Out of 207 admissions in 1919, 107 were distributed almost equally between Rangoon and Mandalay. The death-rate was high, averaging 25 per cent. The disease is, I believe, extremely common in towns, but rarely recognized by the Burman Sayas. When Civil Surgeon, I have time after time been sent for after perforation had taken place, the case having been treated as fever,” frequently with abdominal massage. Influenza.—The returns do not show this disease ; it has been entered under various heads, Other Infectious Diseases, ” Pyrexia of uncertain origin ” and Pneumonia,” etc., chiefly the first mentioned, which rose from an average of 764 cases for the preceding four years to 7,147 cases in 1918 and 4,064 in 1919, with a death-rate of 21 per cent. The number of cases of pneumonia increased by 50 percent, in 1918 and 1919 as compared with previous years. Experience does not clearly indicate any special line of treatment for influenza: Quinine Salycilates, Creasote, Cinnamon all have their advocates. Plague.—The. number of cases treated in hospital was 1,634, slightly greater than during 1914—16. The death-rate was practically the same, /.e., 60 per cent. Dr. Sheldon, Railway Medical Officer, advocates early and complete excision of the affected glands in bubonic cases, and subsequently packing the wound^with pledgets soaked in concentrated saline, to stimulate a flow of lymph. He has obtained good results by this method in a few cases, but the numbers are too small to dogmatize on. Tuberculosis.—This scourge showed itself chiefly in the form of tubercle of the lung. There were 11,501 in and out-door patients treated in 1917—19 as compared with 9,91 1 in 1914—16. The increase was censidered by some observers to be due to influenza; that tubercle wras in fact a common sequela to that disease. The statistics do not bear this out, the number of cases in 1918 and 1919 being fewer than those in 1917. Other tubercular diseases were- little more than one half what they were in 1914—16, being 2,467 cases as compared with 4,535. The extended use of the miscroscope is I believe responsible for this. Tubercle is very much more common in Lower than in Upper Burma with the exception of Mandalay and the Shan States. Amongst the agriculturists in the dry zone of Upper Burma, the disease is almost unknown. The great enemy of attempts to eradicate this disease is the casual way in which it is treated by Burmans in its early stages. Venereal Diseases.—The statistics do not show the total amount of venereal disease treated in hospitals. Syphilis and Gonorrhoea are classified as such, but it is impossible to say what number of venereal diseases are included under the heads of “ Inflammation, Lymph Glands, Other Diseases of the Generative Organs, etc.” The triennium shows a decided increase in both Syphilis and Gonorrhoea, the former from 65,775 to 68,923, and the latter from 49,917 to 53,331, as compared with 1914—16. The cause usually assigned is the return of men from military service, but as a practically proportionate increase occurred in the preceding triennium as compared with 1911 —13, this can hardly be accepted as the sole or even the chief cause.