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War Surgery and Medicine

Native Labourers

Native Labourers

A camp laundry was established. It was staffed by native labour, and strict hygiene supervision was necessary to ensure that a reasonable standard of cleanliness was maintained. Labourers with infectious disease were rejected and the clothing of the native workers was disinfected regularly as a precaution against lice. (It also became the practice for all native labourers employed in the camp to be compulsorily showered at the camp entrance regularly, and to have their clothing disinfested.)

The attention of the hygiene personnel had to be directed to the staffs of the NAAFIs and their standards of cleanliness in the handling of foodstuffs and the washing of plates and glasses. The observance of sanitary requirements by all native artisans and labourers—those employed by the engineer unit, the camp barbers, the swill contractors, the camp tailors, bootmakers, etc.—had to be continually checked. Outside the camp the inspection and improvement of conditions of sanitation in the nearby native villages of Bassatin, Tura, etc., was a necessary corollary of hygiene control within the camp, and the camp environs had to be subjected to mosquito control in the malaria season.