| Description | Description of cases in the regimental hospital at St. Owen's Island, Jersey, during voyage to Portsmouth, while stationed at Hilsea barracks and on board the 'Taunton' [Castle] on voyage to Bombay.
Remarks are entered for each day and include the names of the patients, their complaints, the medicines prescribed, their progress and if they have been dismissed from hospital.
Weekly remarks, in which McGrigor also summarises the progress of individual cases, are provided for the following dates:
[Remarks on cases from 1-16 August (p.43)]: notes that on the 2 August, 'a draft arrived for the regt. from Chatham, and with them brought much filth and the Typhus - of two cases admitted on the 3rd _ Smith…died 3 hours after admission'.
17-24 August (p.61): discusses trials of Nitrous Acid: 'the cure cannot be said to be complete on account of the omission of the medicine before the symptoms had entirely disappeared being for some time stationary'; in 3 cases mercury was used for 10 days after the acid treatment was stopped which had a beneficial effect except in one case.
24-30 August (p.77)
31 August-6 September (p.94) [continued from p.78]
7-13 September (p.107)
15-20 September (p.121)
21-27 September (p.131)
28 September-4 October (p.144)
5-11 October (p.154)
12-20 October (p.163)
[21-27 October] (p.171): 'No fresh instance of fever has occurred since last report, nor any relapse'.
28 October-3 November (p.180): notes that no fresh case of any consequence has occurred and that the [symptoms?] in Hewly's case 'are entirely disappeared. He is now able to walkabout'.
4-10 November (p.187)
11-16 November (p.191)
[There are no weekly remarks for the period 17-29 November.]
30 November-6 December (p.212): after having been in a healthy state for several weeks, the regiment was affected by a febrile contagion after embarking at Jersey; discusses two cases. Notes that no new case of febrile infection occurred until the debarkation [disembarkation] of the regiment at Hilsea Barracks, 'when about 90 recruits joined the Regt. after being on board ship upwards of a month bringing with them several very bad cases of fever, which must have been much heightened by the length of time they had been embarked, added to the extreme dirtiness of their persons, and the number of men which had been crowded into the ship from different regts at Jersey…'.
7-13 December (p.234): notes condition of Mills, 'the most violent febrile case since the [posting?] of the Regt…'; the recruits are the only ones to contract this fever: 'It is most likely from bad _ and sudden vicissitudes of the weather'.
[There are no weekly remarks for the period 14 December 1798-14 February 1799. Daily reports on cases have been entered as normal for this period, apart from the 18-30 December (pp.244-247). McGrigor left Portsmouth on the 25 December 1798 for India, arriving in Bombay in May 1799. Therefore, the later entries must have been written while on board the ship, although it is not apparent from the notes that this is the case. Evidently, the preparations for the voyage must have prevented him from maintaining his records for a short period.]
There is an index of cases on pages 386-399. Pages 400-413 are blank and page 414 has some brief notes relating to doses of medicine prescribed. |