PREFACE.

THE Secretary of State for India having required that the Statistics of the
Native Armies and Jails of the Minor Presidencies shall be incorporated
in the Annual Series of Tables appended to the Report of the Sanitary Com-
missioner with the Government of India, the series for 1877 will include, in a
uniform shape, the Statistics of the European. and Native Armies and the Jail
Population of India.

   The introduction of this change makes it expedient to close with the
returns of 1876 the series of annual compilations having reference to the
Bengal Presidency only; and the volume containing the statistics of the six
years from 1871 to 1876 is issued along with these commentaries.

   Since 1871, the Statistics of the European Army of the Three Presidencies
have been placed in my hands, and the results have been published annually.
The statistics of a series or years are required adequately to illustrate many
questions of importance relating to the medical history of the British Soldier
in India, and the First Section of this Report gives for the period the illustra-
tions required to supplement the tables which have reference to sickness and
mortality generally.

   The statistics of localities and the influence of seasonal changes I shall
reserve for a future opportunity, when it may be possible to contrast the experi-
ence of the ten years from 1871 to 1880 with that of the decennial period
1860-69, already framed and published as a standard of comparison.

   Reference to the Table of Contents will show the subjects which I propose
to take up for consideration in the meantime.

   In the Second Section, relating to the Native Army of Bengal, the Statis-
tics of the Ten Years from 1867 to 1876 are reviewed, and a Standard for the Ten
Years, in a series of forty-nine tables, is appended. The Statistics of the Sta-
tions of the Presidency for the period are printed. in detail for twelve stations
only, which may be taken as representative of areas; but the same Statistics
of locality have been made up in detail for each Cantonment of the Presidency,
and are available for reference.

   The Third Section reviews the Jail Mortality of the Presidency over a
period of Eighteen Years. The statistics are arranged in two series, having
reference to the eighteen years from 1859 to 1876, and to the ten years from
1867 to 1876. The reason for this will appear when the contents of these
tables are discussed. The latter series is drawn up as a Ten-year Standard,
uniform with that for the Native Army of Bengal; but, by desire of the Secre-
tary of State for India, the figures of the ten years have been adapted so as to
represent the different Jail Administrations of the Presidency. The Ten-year
standard consists of fifty-six tables; and this is, I believe, the first time that