ABSTRACT
To study the pattern of various medical diseases seen during specialist medical rural practice, we undertook an analysis of 1362 consecutive cases seen over an eight year period at a rural centre in Rajasthan. Analysis showed that infective diseases e.g. tuberculosis, acute infections, and infection related diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, skin, nervous system and heart formed the largest group with 724 patients (53.2%) as compared with chronic non-infective systemic diseases which were seen in 638 patients (46.8%). Cardiac diseases were seen in 306 patients (22.5%) which included 110 cases with ischaemic heart disease, 38 with hypertension, 110 with rheumatic heart disease, and 48 with other conditions. It is concluded that in rural practice acute and chronic infective diseases, and infection related illnesses (e.g. rheumatic heart disease) are more common than degenerative non-communicable diseases. Thus, more attention is needed in the field of infective diseases which are amenable to prevention and cure. Cardiovascular diseases form a sizeable majority of non-infective medical illnesses.