The Nature of Jail Dysentery

The following figures may be of some interest and value towards settling the question whether jail dysentery is mainly of the amoebic or bacillary type. They were collected in Sylhet jail which, like many of the other jails of Bengal and Assam, regularly has a high admission rate for dysentery. It is a large district jail with a population of between 600 and 700. Facilities for bacteriological tests not being available, it was decided to apply the test of treatment in order to settle whether the dysentery of this jail is amcebic or bacillary in nature. In April 1913 therefore a " dysentery register" was opened and all prisoners admitted to hospital for this disease were entered in the book as they came. Without selection, alternate cases on the list were treated with hypodermic injections of emetine, ^ gr. daily for two to five days, and alternate cases with the older methods. About half the latter received ipecacuanha in doses of gr. xx to gr. xl per diem for three to nine days and the other half were treated with sodium or magnesium sulphate, one drachm every three hours continued in diminishing doses, while a few received tinct. ixora cocci or extract holorrhena liquidum, which drugs had been sent for trial in small quantities by the Indigenous Drags Committee. In the register were recorded :?