[Sidenote: Vide Tables T. and U., pp. 48 and 49.]
This return contains the numbers of admissions to, deaths and
discharges from, the civil hospital, during the last six years, of the
creoles and Indians, which may be taken to represent the aboriginal
population of this island, although few, except the creoles, are really
natives. It will be seen that the rate of deaths is very large, and
this, without explanation, might give rise to false inference as to
the healthfulness of the island. The general death rate of the Indians
throughout the island for 1859 was 25 per 1,000, or only 2 per 1,000
above that of all England for 1858; and, when it is considered that
all, or almost all, the Indians are agricultural labourers or servants,
and from the nature of their labour much exposed to casualties, such a
death rate points to Mauritius as (what it is) an exceedingly healthy
locality. Why then so large a mortality as 22 per cent. in the civil
hospital? The answer is readily given by the fact that the same
prejudice against hospitals exists among the Indians and creoles here
as among the poorer classes in England, but in an exaggerated degree,
and consequently that a very large proportion of absolutely hopeless
cases are admitted; so much is this the case, that in 1860, out of 696
deaths, no less than 108 died within 24 hours after admission, and
nearly one-half of the deaths occurred within the first week.
In this return two epidemics of cholera are included; one of very
severe character in 1856, and a smaller one in 1859, which carried
off above 306 patients. The most fatal diseases, it will be seen, are
dysentery, diarrhœa, phthisis, dropsy, and fever. The greater number
of the cases of dysentery admitted are old worn-out cases in the
last stage of emaciation, filth, and misery; many of them abandoned
by their friends, picked up by the police, and brought into hospital
to die. The greater part of the cases entered as diarrhœa in former
years were undoubtedly either dysentery or phthisis; the latter is
as prevalent (if not more so) among all classes of inhabitants as in
England. The cases of dropsy depend on the same causes as in Europe,
but many cases are seen which present scarcely any morbid change in
any of the organs. Fever is of very low type, and true typhus and
typhoid are not unfrequent. Although many of the Indians and creoles
are habitual drunkards, cases of delirium tremens are very rare.
Leprosy is a frequent and fearful disease among creoles and Indians,
but the frequency is not shown in the return, as, until {66} lately,
all the cases of leprosy were sent to a ward for that purpose in the
lunatic asylum. This disease rarely occurs among Europeans arrived from
Europe, it is more frequent among creoles of European parents born in
the island, and very much more so among the mixed African race and the
Indians. Tetanus, both traumatic and idiopathic, occurs very much more
frequently than in Europe.
P. B. AYRES, M.D. Lond.,
Surgeon in charge.
Civil Hospital, Port Louis,
22d June 1861.