‘Notes by Dr. J. F. Wise, Civil Surgeon of Dacca, on the Sanitary State of that Station’ in Sanitary Commissioner of Bengal, First AnnualReportfor 1868 (Calcutta, Government Press, 1869), pp. 97–129. British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections, shelfmark V/24/3803.

Among the recommendations in the Report of the Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army in India was the appointment of sanitary commissions at each of the presidencies. Committees of Public Health were therefore established and a draft code of sanitary regulations prepared to encourage uniformity of practice. The first was in Bengal, with Strachey as president. The principal aim was to improve mortality rates in the army, but in keeping with the strictures of Florence Nightingale this meant some attention had to be devoted to the community at large. It was decided to proceed gradually in creating the necessary machinery, the first step in which was to gather information on the precise nature of the conditions that prevailed in the localities. The first annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner of Bengal, therefore, contained sanitary reports from surgeons in all of the forty districts. The most detailed of these was that written by Dr J. F. Wise on Dacca, which presented a picture of human squalor unmitigated by the feeble attempts at municipal reform.