Official report on the medical topography and climate of Calcutta : with brief notices of its prevalent diseases, endemic and epidemic / by James Ranald Martin.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Official report on the medical topography and climate of Calcutta : with brief notices of its prevalent diseases, endemic and epidemic / by James Ranald Martin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Repeated mention is made by Captain Hamilton of the extreme in- salubrity of the site chosen for the factory of Calcutta ; and even the pre- sumed better habits of the clergy could not in those days protect them. “ The ministers of the gospel,” he says, “ being subject to mortality, very often young merchants are obliged to officiate, and have a salary of £50 per annum added to what the Company allows them, for their pains in reading prayers and sermons on Sundays.” Further, “ the Com- pany has a pretty good hospital at Calcutta, where many go in to undergo the penance of physick, but few come out to give account of its operation.” This intelligent traveller seems, however, to have spent his time alto- gether agreeably in Calcutta, where the better classes lived “ both splen- didly and pleasantly,” when such unpleasant intruders as “ pride or con- tention do not spoil society, which too often they do among the ladies, as discord and faction do among the men.” “ But there are no polemicks, except what are between our high- churchmen and our low, or between the Governor’s party and other private merchants on points of trade.” At that time also, all religions were “ freely tolerated, but the Presbyterian, and that they brow-beat.” The first permission obtained by the British to trade with Bengal was granted about the year 1656, through the skill and influence of Dr. Boughton ; so the second was obtained in 1717, through the solicitation of Mr. Hamilton, Surgeon on the then infant establishment of Fort William. “ Ferokshere had been some time engaged to marry the daugh- ter of Raja Ajeet Sing, one of the Rajpoot Princes; and the bride had arrived, for that purpose, at the capital: but the Em- peror, being afflicted with a complaint which all the skill of his own physicians could not cure, was under the necessity of post- poning the marriage. At length, in consequence of the recommen- dation of Khan Dowran, he permitted Mr. Hamilton, the Surgeon of the Embassy, to attend him ; and that gentleman having, by a judicious operation, restored the Emperor to health, became very deservedly a great favorite with his Majesty, who, in addition to many proofs of the royal B Captain Hamil- ton’s frequent men- tion of unhealthi- ness. Important grants obtained through the skill of Drs. Boughton and Ha- milton.