16

ANNUAL REPORT ON THE

   A Corporal of the British regiment has been reported to have been specially appointed as
Regimental Detective Agent in accompanying soldiers to the bazaar, who point out the women
who diseased them; and a Regimental Police party patrols at nightfall, preventing any prosti-
tute, cooly woman or other entering the barrack premises after sunset. The increased special
party of Police, now consisting of 1 Head Constable and 3 Constables, engaged upon the same
duty, have during this famine year had a wider field open to their operations than in any preceding.

   Registration has thereby been much extended also. Ninety-nine women have been
registered in 1877 against 27 only in the year preceding; 47 women were struck off the register
in 1877, while in 1876 62 were

   No fees have been levied for registration. Prostitutes have not been regular in their
attendance at the tri-weekly inspections: lists of such absentees from the periodic examinations
are submitted weekly, one to the Cantonment Magistrate and one to the Superintendent of
Police. The proportion of absentees has been 1 in every 3.59 of the numerical strength, and
several have absconded from the station. The number absconded from the hospital has been 6.

   Venereal diseases alone are admitted. The total number of such admissions during 1877
has been 398 against 273 of the year preceding, as exhibited under their several headings. The
number of sick in hospital on the 1st January 1877 was 16; the maximum number of sick
attained was 75 on the 20th September. On the 31st December the number was reduced to 27.
The marked increase of venereal during the year under review is conclusively suggestive of the
famine; concurrent directly and indirectly with the influx of district famine refugees in search
of famine-relief, eking out a livelihood by prostitution, and presenting a wider field of infection
to the troops and others, doubtless at cheaper rates.

   The wider field opened to the operations of the increased special detective party of police,
and the extended registration occasioned thereby, manifestly indicate this; the last act in its
history being the final hospital admission of the diseased prostitute having betrayed herself by
disseminating infection among the troops and so brought under report and registration, and
then sent to the lock, where she remains under treatment and daily morning and evening
examinations, and from whence she is not again discharged until she has been free from
venereal disease and danger of infection for at least a week.

   The hospital returns of the year include several non-registered diseased women who
voluntarily came for treatment, as well as such others sent in by medical subordinates attached
to Famine-relief Camps and found to be diseased.

   It appears to me advisable that the system of segregation found to answer so successfully
in some other military stations, such as Aden, may be made applicable to this, and that the
compulsory residence of the registered prostitute section to an allotted quarter of the town be
adopted. The Lock Hospital is situated in an open part of the cantonment amidst two great
populous bazaars, conveniently distant from each, and about half a mile south of the fort; there
is a very general voluntary disposition among the prostitutes having so frequently to attend it,
to reside in its immediate neighborhood, and it appears to me in every respect a suitable
locality for them if all were centred in it, so bringing them under better police supervision
and control.

Extract from the Annual Medical Report of the Lock Hospital, Cannanore,
by Surgeon J. H. RITCHIE, M. D.

Strength of Prostitutes.

Number of Sick.