The sanitary condition and discipline of Indian jails

Front matter

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Med

SANITARY CONDITION

Preface

tions of the scheme, which, he believes, is based upon a combination of humane, natural, and philosophical principles.

The Author takes this opportunity to tender his grateful acknowledgments to Drs. Mouat and Hathaway, Inspectors- General of Prisons in the Lower Provinces of Bengal and the Punjab respectively ; to Dr. Cornish, Secretary to the Director-General, Medical Department, Madras ; and to A. Bettington, Esq., Inspector-General of Prisons, Bombay, for their kindness and courtesy in providing him with official reports and information which have proved invaluable to him.

Kherwarrah, March 6th, 1860.

Contents

Introductory Observations .

CHAP.

I. — On the Sickness and Mortality among Indian

Appendix

Rules foe the Medical Management of Jails in Lower Bengal .......

Rules for the Subordinate Medical Staff and Hospital Attendants of Jails in Lower Bengal Rules for Convicts transported to Arracan Regulations for Convict Ships Rules for Prisoners in Transit .

Rules for the Disposal of Children of Convict Mothers Shaving of Prisoners in Bengal Jails Rules for Military Guards in Jails Rules for the Management of Public Jails in the Madras Presidency .....

Medical Officers’ Duties in Punjab Jails Miscellaneous Extracts ....

311-315

315-317

317-321

322-326

326- 327

327- 328 328

328- 331

332-346

347-349

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

The following pages contain many illustrations of the defective sanitary and hygienic state of Indian Prisons, together with suggestions for their amendment. One important recommendation has been reserved for prominent mention here. To go in medias res , it is simply as follows : — The sanitary powers of the medical officer in charge of every jail ought to be augmented. The medical officer should be as supreme in all matters connected with Preventive, as he is now in respect to Curative Medicine.

The sanitary establishment, drawn from among the prisoners, and fixed by the Inspector- General of Prisons, should he placed under the sole local control and management of the medical officer, whose authority over it should he as absolute as that which he now exercises over his hospital establishment. There should be no conceivable room for doubt or misapprehension as to this condition, because the principle inculcated is essential to the successful operation of the scheme.

The duties of the sanitary body of every jail would

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INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

be as subjoined. To keep the wards, cells, hospital, yards, and adjoining grounds, in a thorough state of cleanliness ; to maintain the necessaries and drains as free as possible from all filth ; to see that the deodorizing agents employed are in constant working order ; to remove, with the utmost promptitude, all decomposing animal and vegetable matter; to whitewash and purify the wards, cells, and hospital, whenever requisite ; to take proper measures for the removal of

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dampness from the sleeping apartments, &c. ; to attend to ventilation ; to preserve the utmost cleanliness in the places appointed for bathing, as also in and near the wells and tanks from which the water, used for cooking and drinking, is drawn ; to attend, with unremitting vigilance, to the filters, wherever they exist, with a view to insure their constant efficiency ; in short, to attend, with precision and effect, to all matters calculated to preserve the purity of the jail water and atmosphere.

It is exceedingly difficult to discover the existence of a single valid objection to the adoption of the suggestion above advanced. That of expense cannot be urged ; for the arrangement proposed would only involve the transfer of the individuals, now employed in a very unsatisfactory manner, for the purpose of preserving the cleanliness of the jails and their appendages from the civil officers in charge of the jails, to the medical officers, who are nominally , but not really responsible for the practical execution of sanitary measures. It may even be questioned whether the number

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

XI of hands that would be required by the sanitary officer, vested with full powers over his department, would be so great as that which is now used under present circumstances.

The existing system confers an initiatory or recommendatory power upon the medical officer, but vests all real executive or directorial action in the civil officer. The actual condition of the jails fully shows that, in practice, this plan is fatal to successful sanitary discipline, and that some radical change is imperatively necessary. Its chief result hitherto has been to cause the compilation of interminable, and annually repeated reports, mountains of correspondence, and an invisible minimum of executive action — always too late, generally misdirected or temporary, or subject to cessation or relapse into the normal state of passiveness, inactivity, or indifference, when the immediate necessity or pressure, in the shape of a decimating cholera epidemic, endemic fever, or destructive dysentery and diarrhoea, may have become diminished, or have temporarily disappeared.

But the plan, which I have in view, would curtail the expenditure of pens, ink, and paper, and what is of infinitely greater importance to a physician or surgeon, who has to keep pace with the rapid march of the medical intellect and literature of the day, it would lessen the waste of priceless, invaluable time, now frittered away in useless correspondence, which seldom leads to any permanent good results, and guarantee the provision of a maximum of well-timed , well-directed, , and prompt

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INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

executive action , and that , too , with a minimum of expense and agency. In addition to special qualifications and knowledge, the medical officer, by virtue of his daily visits to the jail, is peculiarly fitted to turn the work of the sanitary establishment to the very best account. As satisfactory proofs that this has been accomplished, the perfection of the drainage and conservancy arrangements, the universal cleanliness of the cells, wards, hospital, &c., the constant sweetness of the jail atmosphere, the purity of the water, &c., and improvement of the general health of the criminals, as tested by a diminution of sickness and mortality, might be selected.

Thus might all the available resources of Preventive and Curative Medicine he centred, in an effectual and economical manner, in the only officer officially connected with Indian jails qualified to unite the two with safety and success. Thus might the epidemic, endemic, and epizootic diseases, which play such havoc among the prisoners, be assailed at their sources by the responsible and systematic annihilation of the abominable fountains from which they spring and flow, subsequently to decimate the occupants of the prisons, or to be disseminated therefrom, with electric rapidity ; to create panic, consternation, and appalling mortality among the industrial and productive constituents of the civil population.

INDIAN JAILS.