Help reading medical info

[lenawylie]

Hi all,

I have just received my great grandads army info  and in it is his medical history.  But I am having problems making out the writing!  Can anyone out there decipher what it says??  I can make out the first disease as Gnorrhea but can't make out the remarks (or anything else for that matter) .
He served in India for two years .

Anyone help would be greatly appreciated

lena x

Please bear with me if photo doesn't work - first time i have added a photo

[PaulineJ]

I think that the first comments may be:
Contagion.  Severe Bal..am & Suggets? R. Final column (signature)

After that I think most of the comments are signatures with "Surgeon " written in the r/hand column.

Pauline

[avm228]

I read it as : Contagion severe. Balsam & injects. R. (my punctuation)

...so he was severely afflicted, which is consistent with his having spent 27 days in hospital; and was treated with balsam (topical lotion) and injections. R may mean "recovered"; if you look at the notes at the top of the column it requires the surgeon to state whether the patient has completely recovered.

Edited to add: from a quick Google search it looks in fact as though balsam (which was derived from tree resin) was taken orally as a drink rather than applied topically.  Apparently the injections (3x per day) would have been of hydrogen peroxide, if this 1915 guide is anything to go by: http://www.vlib.us/medical/gc.htm

Poor fellow! 

Anna

[M.T.H]

Hi Lena,

Against the entry for Hounslow 3.5.88 it says that he was Revaccinated on 5.1.89 - Result 'modified'.

Mick

[M.T.H]

The stations are;

Colchester - 22 Jan 86

Norwich - 2.6.86

Hounslow - 3.5.88

Aldershot - 5.7.89

Shorncliffe - 20.7.91

H.M.S. Euphrates - 1.9.91

Secunderabad - 5.10.91

Bangalore - 2.12.91

Not sure about the last entry though?

Mick

[avm228]

Last entry may be Malabar (SW India)?

Anna

[lenawylie]

Oh dear that doesn't sound very nice!

Mick - I did see somewhere else something about him being revaccinated so that makes sense!

That would make sense if the ones under the red writing in the remarks column are just signatures, and not actually a disease or illness.

Ahh, I wondered what some of those station,troop or ship names might have been

thank you all
Lena x

[Hackstaple]

The other names are those of medical officers. He would have been subject to reexamination annually, as were all soldiers. Several of these were not by regimental doctors but by Military Hospitals as denoted by the rank of the signatory - Lt- Col. - the rank of a Hospital CO.
The Euphrates was a troopship. The other English ones were various garrisons. Shorncliffe was a gunnery training range. The Indian ones are various garrisons there - Secunderabad being his first station after disembarcation. The last is indeed Malabar.

[Daffodilly]

Where it says Balsam & Injects R, the R is probably the sign for 'prescription' or 'prescribed' as an R with the final line extended and crossed like an x which is a doctor's 'shorthand' for prescription or 'receipt' as it was often called then.  Doctors sometimes still use them on prescriptions but these days they are usually printed by computer.