Page 203 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (IV)_Neat

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by his nakhuda is decided each season by the Government after the annual meeting of the leading
members of the pearling community but it is known that many nakhudas in order to attract good
divers, give them an additional loan at the beginning of the season. The nakhudas who do this how­
ever do it at their own risk for such advances arc not recoverable in court. Complaints by divers
against nakhudas arc now-a-days infrequent and divers’ debts arc no longer large partly fictitious
amounts which served to keep the divers tied to their nakhudas throughout their lives. During the
1369 season there was no shortage of divers, this was mainly because a number of men came to Bahrain
from Persia and the Arab coast in order to dive in Bahrain boats.
The system which was introduced a few years ago to enable divers to retain their shore jobs
instead of going to sea worked successfully. By this arrangement a diver who was indebted to a
nakhuda could avoid diving by repaying to his nakhuda a sum equivalent to the annual divers’
advance, which in 1369 was Ks. 210. This sum was deducted from the divers’ debt to his nakhuda
and the diver obtained exemption from diving during the season.

PUBLIC HEALTH

(Report by Dr. R. H. B. Snow, State Medical Officer.)
Introduction.—It is not easy to review a year’s work. The routine daily rounds and main­
tenance of treatments of all kinds become fogged in one’s own mind losing their relative importance
so that only a few clear cut highlights and tragedies, over which concentrated days of medical care
have been expended, seem to remain. Some of these arc worth mentioning however because they
illustrate a variety of emergency problems.
There was a little cripple boy from Saudi Arabia with his body contorted by rickets looking not
more than half his years. Waiting for Chloromycetin from England to save his life was a dying
Typhoid with only two days to live. From the Royal Navy was a sailor pulseless from shock from a
limb nearly tom off. Then a man from a Tanker with a face of wax from internal haemorrhage arrived
in a precarious condition. A young Arab from the Trucial Coast was brought by air with a perforated
gastric ulcer 30 hours old also in a desperate state. Finally a Naval Officer was landed with the
acutest form of infantile paralysis to be put into an iron lung. It was a great tragedy that the last
man did not recover. The other lives were all saved. The boy after 8 months now walks straight of
limb. The Typhoid received his Chloromycetin just in time. Blood transfusions saved the lives of
the two men from ships, and an operation on the gastric patient narrowly averted death.
The link with England and specialist treatment is now very close. Several patients have
been flown to London to be put under expert care for the rest of their treatment. For example, nothing
could be more satisfying than when a certain man was discovered going blind from a detached retina
a few days old, he could be immediately given a seat on a B.O.A.C. plane and shortly after arrival
receive an operation to prevent blindness. Certain X-rays and specimens have also been sent home
for expert interpretation, and exchanges of correspondence with Harley Street have proved most
helpful.
The Year’s Health.—An unusually cool hot weather cut down sepsis and skin affections. The
increasing efficiency of air-conditioning in Manamah among business firms has certainly improved the
health conditions of its European members. Smallpox and Typhoid still prevail in an insidious way
and the incidence of Dysentery was higher. Malaria control remained stationary, but the advent of
the Todd Insecticidal Fog Machine in May, commonly known as TIFA, will radically alter this. The
hospitals and dispensaries showed increasing numbers, and altogether there is a growing realisation
of the benefits of medical care.
Epidemics.—Smallpox started in December and spread to the outlying villages taking eight
months to stamp out.