Sketch of the Medical Topography; Or, Climate and Soils of Bengal and the N. W. Provinces (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859. Excerpt: ... The following observations on the subject of goitre and cretinism, which were printed in India, some years since, may give an importance that was wanting to the geological descriptions contained in the first part of these pages, and be the means of drawing the attention of medical topographers more closely to the influence of soils on the human constitution: --When engaged in collecting information given in the preceding pages, I was struck with the frequency of goitre in one portion of the district; while the other was almost perfectly exempt from the complaint. The Alpine characters of the province are the same in every part, the inhabitants all belong to the same tribes of Hindoos, and are subject to fewer irregularities in their mode of life than any other people in the world. In such a field, there could be little merit in eliciting highly important facts connected with this intricate subject. That portion of Kemaon which lies on the south side of the Ramessa river, is composed of silicious and argillaceous rocks. Granite, which penetrates through the upper beds, forms a lofty ridge about eight thousand feet high. In the centre of this ridge there are numerous small valleys, some of them seven thousand, and others as low as three thousand, feet above the sea. These are inhabited by persons who, to procure pasture for their cattle in winter, descend into the plains, and are absent from their villages for five months every year. From inquiries made amongst these people, I found them to be affected with goitre in the proportion of one in five hundred; but as they do not constantly reside in the mountains, they are excluded from the more minute statistical details on the subject. On the north-eastern side of the chain of mountains above mentioned, are num..