At every hospital or dispensary maintained or aided under section 178, the sick poor of the cantonment, and other inhabitants of the cantonment suffering from infectious, communicable or contagious disease, and, with the sanction of the Board, any other sick persons, may receive medical or surgical treatment free of cost, and, if treated as in-patients, shall be either dieted gratuitously or, if the medical officer in charge so directs, shall be granted subsistence allowance on such scale as the Board may fix.