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anti-syphilis campaign; apprentice compounder; inspection of the dispensary and opium shop at Wakching; Lhotas held for ransom by Muhamadans at Gorunga |
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Halted Wakching. Capt. Shakespear and the escort left for Kongan leaving behind their sick of whom one only was at all seriously ill, having pneumonia. The wonder is that no more were ill, with all the rain we have had. |
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The Sub Assistant Surgeon who accompanied the column - he is the Sub Assistant Surgeon attached to the Mokokchung dispensary - waited behind to go back to Mokokchung tomorrow with Mr. Mills. He deserves a good deal of credit. Absolutely fresh from the plains and new to the country and everything else he did some quite stout marching and was always ready for work at the end of it and never grumbled in spite of a great deal of discomfort, for which he cannot have been at all prepared, in continuously wet weather. He should do well in this district. |
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I visited the Wakching Dispensary and found that the antisyphilitic campaign is really doing well and likely to prove a success. The patients are coming in for treatment and a fair number are already about to be discharged cured. The proportion of temporary evasions in Wakching is not high and they will all be roped in and a detailed examination of other villages is to be undertaken. |
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There is an apprentice compounder here, an Ao from Chanki, who really seems to be a success. I do not know how far this is due to the Wakching Sub Assistant Surgeon, who is very well spoken of locally (he is a Mech from Goalpara), or how far to the boy himself, but I gather he is likely to qualify for a permanent post next year. I hear that he is destined to be posted to Kohima for a sort of final course, but if this case be avoided I think it would be an advantage. It is sure to spoil him otherwise, even if it improves his compounding. |
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I then inspected the new opium shop as far as I could in its very incipient condition. The list of consumers is being kept up and is checked by the Sub Divisional Officer; list of opium eaters, but the consumers tickets have not yet arrived. Meanwhile I am very doubtful whether the majority of opium eating villages do not still purchase in the plains in spite of the reduction of the plains ration and the orders against sale to Nagas. The estimated consumption of the Naga villages to purchase at Wakching was about 35 seers per month, but only 5 seers have been taken so far this month. It may be that some of them have bought stocks before the end of March, but hardly to this extent. I saw some of the opium sold. The purchasers (from Chui, across the frontier) remarked that it was more for their money and far better opium than they ever got in the plains, and was hard instead of being sloppy. The price per tola is nominally the same as the plains price, but probably there is less adulteration, and no doubt the shopkeepers in the plains give short weight. |
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The Sub Divisional Officer had some papers in here about some Lhotas of Changsu who were confined in the compound of a Mosque at Gorunga by some of the blackguardly Muhamadans there are in it and who have an old feud with the Sanis people. They demanded Rs. 10/- per head for their release, but did not get it. The police of course can find out nothing at all, which one might have expected from the Sibsagar Police. |
