?(25) BENGAL PROVINCE, 1868. There are no statistics available to show the monthly prevance of cholera among the civil population of this province for the year 1868. In this year the office of Sanitary Commissioner for the Bengal Province was created. From the first annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal for 1868, the following particulars regarding the prevalence of cholera in the province for that year are gathered:-"The Bengal Province, or Lower Provinces of the Bengal Presidency, comprises Bengal Proper, Behar, and Orissa." The Civil Surgeon of Howrah writes:-"Cholera is endemic, it also occurs epidemically; *** diarrhœa very prevalent." The population is estimated at above 564,000, and its density at about 1,025 to the square mile. On an average the sub-soil water is found at the depth of about 12 feet from the surface. No wells are used in the district. Tanks are numerous. Cholera prevails more at the beginning of the hot and cold seasons than at other times. The Civil Surgeon of Hugli writes:-"In this district fever of a severe intermittent type is of an endemic nature, its attacks are confined mostly to the commencement and breaking up of the rains, and also to the beginning of the winter months, and to the periods of the reaping of the rice-crops.*** Cholera shows itself at times in a severe form; frequently it is of a sporadic nature, directly traceable to exposure to damp and bad food."***The population of the district is estimated at 1,600,000, and its density to the square mile at about 1,100. Some times the Damudah inundates the country and greatly enriches the soil, but as a rule the inundations are disastrous; both man and beast, and even entire villages are apt to be swept away in a few hours. Water is found in the dry season between 18 and 20 feet, and in the rainy weather between 7 and 8 feet below the surface. "Wells are not used. Tanks are numerous. The few wells that do exist are of masonry, from 20 to 40 feet deep, and generally protected by railings or a low wall. Jessore.-Cholera is believed to have prevailed more largely in the district subsequently to 1867 than previous to that year. "Whether the disease was, as it undoubtedly is now, an annual product, or at any rate a phenomenon of yearly occurrence to a greater or less extent, it is certain that in that year a most virulent visitation of cholera occurred, and that ever since then the district has been the seat of virulent outbreaks of the disease. Jessore also participated, along with other districts adjoining, in the outbreaks of the so- called epidmic fever which prevailed from 1860 to 1865. Indeed, this peculiar manifestation of disease appears to have had its rise in the district." In the autumn of 1846 there was an outbreak of fever in Jessore station and the whole of the neighbouring district during the last week of October and the whole of the month of November. The "amount of sickness and fever" is described as "perfectly appaling, and disease was not only virulent as regards the number who were attacked, but the mortality was most excessive. In the city of Jessore, which contains a population of about 6,000 people, about 10 deaths occurred it was computed daily; nearly three-fourths of the domestic servants and about the same number of the law officers connected with the law courts were laid up. The European officers suffered to nearly the same extent; out of 33 European or Eurasian inhabitants, 22 were all under medical treatment during the month. The epidemic from which they all suffered was a very peculiar description of fever, which in general commenced as a common quotidian intermittent, but which after the few first days, from the 1st to 5th, assumed a continued type, the remissions or intermissions being scarcely perceptible and the cold stage being merely a species of transient horripilation and shivering, which only lasted a few minutes, which was followed by great heat of skin. This was only occasionally followed by a cold, clammy perspiration. The complications which were observed were principally of the head and chest, and as frequently of the latter as the former. There can be no doubt that the great amount of sickness was solely to be ascribed to the lateness of the rains and the sudden drying up of the river Bhyrab.' The Civil Surgeon of Jessore, Doctor Kenneth McLeod, adduces the above extract from an old report, because he is "certain that if a similar outbreak were to occur now, the disease would be called ' epidemic fever, ' and to show \?\