04-01-2005, 04:15 AM
During the course of the nineteenth century, particularly from about the 1840s and 1850s onwards, British attitudes towards death in India changed in two or three significant ways. Firstly, the wealthier strata of Europeans--the civil servants, the army officers and their families--found that their lives became more secure, and the chances of their dying from a fatal disease were much less than they had been in the period before 1840 or 1830. So in many ways they appeared to live a more secure lifestyle.
By contrast, the levels of sicknes--and to some extent mortality--remained very high amongst the poorer Europeans, particularly the British soldiers in India of whom there were many tens of thousands in the second half of the nineteenth century. And they suffered severely from sexually transmitted diseases, from dysentery, to some extent from typhoid and cholera. This was seen in many respects in the eyes of the superior officers and elsewhere as indicative of the laxer morals and the lower status of these poor Europeans.
By contrast, the levels of sicknes--and to some extent mortality--remained very high amongst the poorer Europeans, particularly the British soldiers in India of whom there were many tens of thousands in the second half of the nineteenth century. And they suffered severely from sexually transmitted diseases, from dysentery, to some extent from typhoid and cholera. This was seen in many respects in the eyes of the superior officers and elsewhere as indicative of the laxer morals and the lower status of these poor Europeans.