About a quarter of the patients in British military hospitals suffering from venereal disease

From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 42.

Nevertheless, British soldiers often frequented the 'Lol-Bibbees Bazaar' as Quevillart soon discovered; and venereal diseases were rife, about a quarter of the patients in British military hospitals suffering from them, mainly from syphilis. In the 1830s there had been a lock-hospital for prostitutes on all military stations in India, but in the 1850s, this being considered most improper, the last of the lock-hospitals had been closed and venereal diseases had much increased. It was because of this that Queen's regiments had begun to make arrangements to supply healthy girls of their own for men who would otherwise have gone to the bazaar. In the 7th Dragoon Guards a dozen clean girls were 'attached to the Regiment by the Quartermaster-General's Department'. 'They are to be well housed in the cantonments,' Quevillart wrote, 'and are not to leave the station without the sanction of the General. Their regulated scale of pay is four annas [a quarter of a rupee] for private soldiers, and to others according to their rank. They are women of low caste, furnished by the Honourable East India Company's agent at the rate of five rupees [about 10s.] per head, and a pleasant little sample of women they are.'